Guild Wars 2

The PU changes on mesmer r a joke, a rly bad joke… at least I gotta hope so.

PU right now, especially with mass invis, is pretty broken. In WvW where roaming in groups is a thing i highly doubt that ppl didn’t happen to run into 5 ppl groups with at least 2 mesmers. not to mention how strong mass invis allready is in a premade group with access to teamspeak or any other form of communication, the bonus stealth-duration, made it rediculous.
yes, other classes, mostly lookin at thief here, can stealth a whole groupe for a very long time too, BUT…. if a thief does so, u r mostly forced to stand really close to him and if taking shadow refuge, forced to stand in a specific area, for a certain duration, otherwise you won’t even be stealthed and punished with the reveald debuff instead. mass invis affects all allies in 1200 range which means both mesmer and his teammates r pretty much unbound to where they stand and what they do, they don’t have to gather together, the mesmer isn’t forced to stand fairly still, placing a smoke field and using explo finishers, no. still the mesmer and his teammates will disappear for 10 kittening seconds, cuz the mesmer menaged to hit 1 button, with his f4 there won’t be even that much counterplay in interrupting him before the cast finishes. as said, mass invis in a premade group is allready pretty strong to beginn with and i’m not a mesmer main, so i’m not sure whether teammates are affected by the bonus stealth-duration or not.

Capturing and defending a keep, became frustrating for a lot of people. i’ve seen a lot of people here writing about those 1-hit mesmers and i do agree, that the mesmer has other things rather than PU to should have taken a look at, but there are also a kitten lot of other mesmers running around with tank gear, only equipted and traited to hide in a keep, till they can port in their zerg. finding some of those, while they sit 24/7 in stealth is a huge pain in the kitten , especially in the borderlands bay, where a mesmer can get pretty mobile in the water without really relying on stealth in case of revealed debuff caused by a stealth trap, he will simply swim that time out. jump into the water, get out, blink up the ledge to save time (since a lot of classes still would have to walk that way) and if ur opponent gets to u jump back into the water and repeat… oh no wait, you should be able to stealth again now.

this whole thing about other classes being able to put on the revealed debuff is bullkitten… yes, there are classes that can put on a revealed debuff, but at first by far not every class has access to such abilities and the classes that have, don’t have great abilities to do that, any other ability is most likley to be a better choice overall. being forced into something that comparably weak feels kitten. one could argue, that if you play against a condi class, one is forced to play with more condi remove, but thing is, a lot of condition removing traits/skills are still usefull against none condition classes/builds (a removed imobelize is a removed imobelize after all) and any class can be encounterd as a condition version, whereas access to stealth is not a common thing. i don’t want to be foced to play with reveal, because mesmer and this PU kitten has become the flavor of the month, especially in wvw. oh and i was only talking about the bonus stealth duration, not about the mesmer fully regenerating himself in stealth and reengaging as nothing happened, hitting like a brick from a far away distance. it’s just not fun to play against.

but as said, i really think that a lot of other traits/ratios would need a closer look on rather than PU. PU should just be removed, none mesmers kitten about it and mesmer mains say that it ain’t even that great, end the debate :P

also sorry for my bad english.

EDIT: i like how every swearword is replaced by kitten… i like kittens

Jashugan.4820:

The PU changes on mesmer r a joke, a rly bad joke… at least I gotta hope so.

PU right now, especially with mass invis, is pretty broken. In WvW where roaming in groups is a thing i highly doubt that ppl didn’t happen to run into 5 ppl groups with at least 2 mesmers. not to mention how strong mass invis allready is in a premade group with access to teamspeak or any other form of communication, the bonus stealth-duration, made it rediculous.
yes, other classes, mostly lookin at thief here, can stealth a whole groupe for a very long time too, BUT…. if a thief does so, u r mostly forced to stand really close to him and if taking shadow refuge, forced to stand in a specific area, for a certain duration, otherwise you won’t even be stealthed and punished with the reveald debuff instead. mass invis affects all allies in 1200 range which means both mesmer and his teammates r pretty much unbound to where they stand and what they do, they don’t have to gather together, the mesmer isn’t forced to stand fairly still, placing a smoke field and using explo finishers, no. still the mesmer and his teammates will disappear for 10 kittening seconds, cuz the mesmer menaged to hit 1 button, with his f4 there won’t be even that much counterplay in interrupting him before the cast finishes. as said, mass invis in a premade group is allready pretty strong to beginn with and i’m not a mesmer main, so i’m not sure whether teammates are affected by the bonus stealth-duration or not.

Capturing and defending a keep, became frustrating for a lot of people. i’ve seen a lot of people here writing about those 1-hit mesmers and i do agree, that the mesmer has other things rather than PU to should have taken a look at, but there are also a kitten lot of other mesmers running around with tank gear, only equipted and traited to hide in a keep, till they can port in their zerg. finding some of those, while they sit 24/7 in stealth is a huge pain in the kitten , especially in the borderlands bay, where a mesmer can get pretty mobile in the water without really relying on stealth in case of revealed debuff caused by a stealth trap, he will simply swim that time out. jump into the water, get out, blink up the ledge to save time (since a lot of classes still would have to walk that way) and if ur opponent gets to u jump back into the water and repeat… oh no wait, you should be able to stealth again now.

this whole thing about other classes being able to put on the revealed debuff is bullkitten… yes, there are classes that can put on a revealed debuff, but at first by far not every class has access to such abilities and the classes that have, don’t have great abilities to do that, any other ability is most likley to be a better choice overall. being forced into something that comparably weak feels kitten. one could argue, that if you play against a condi class, one is forced to play with more condi remove, but thing is, a lot of condition removing traits/skills are still usefull against none condition classes/builds (a removed imobelize is a removed imobelize after all) and any class can be encounterd as a condition version, whereas access to stealth is not a common thing. i don’t want to be foced to play with reveal, because mesmer and this PU kitten has become the flavor of the month, especially in wvw. oh and i was only talking about the bonus stealth duration, not about the mesmer fully regenerating himself in stealth and reengaging as nothing happened, hitting like a brick from a far away distance. it’s just not fun to play against.

but as said, i really think that a lot of other traits/ratios would need a closer look on rather than PU. PU should just be removed, none mesmers kitten about it and mesmer mains say that it ain’t even that great, end the debate :P

also sorry for my bad english.

EDIT: i like how every swearword is replaced by kitten… i like kittens

I agree with you almost entirely.
But I’d fix a minor error of yours:
Mass invisibility works on 10 targets, so a zerg of 10 within 1200 range getting 10 secs stealth, with addition of constant aegis, protection, regen and stuff.
2 mes = 20 secs minimum. 3 would be 30 seconds.
GL dealing with that.

Hmm… Balance… People are saying PU is only good for dueling, but I’d say they’re totally wrong. PU is BEST IN TEAM FIGHT 100%!

PU was already balanced before the patch and it got buffed for no reason.

It seems like the majority of players think PU is too strong. Which would you guys prefer as the solution to this, assuming the devs have infinite time to fix this?

1. Nerf PU to be less duration.
2. Nerf Stealth itself to stack fewer times.
3. Nerf Stealth itself to change reveal conditions (On miss for example)
4. Nothing, PU is fine. (explain why)

The Gates Assassin.9827:

It seems like the majority of players think PU is too strong. Which would you guys prefer as the solution to this, assuming the devs have infinite time to fix this?

1. Nerf PU to be less duration.
2. Nerf Stealth itself to stack fewer times.
3. Nerf Stealth itself to change reveal conditions (On miss for example)
4. Nothing, PU is fine. (explain why)

5. Arena Net actually offer a real counter to stealth outside of blindly hitting thin air.

Let’s be honest here, the real problem with stealth for the last 3 years nearly has been that once someone stealths there’s no way to bring them out of it. No way to turn round to a thief or Mesmer that is about to run and say “Not today Modremoth…I mean Mr Thief”.

The dragon hunter trap, reveal for engineers are a step in the right direction but with more classes getting access to stealth it is not enough. We need real ways to do something to reveal someone, not all the time but when we need/want to.

However if a tweak was to come change as follows:
Stealth +2 stealth duration (previously 100%)
Might becomes vigor for 3s.

This trims down MI a lot, veil remains usable, decoy and torch take a hit but level out at 5s. Someone obviously buffed the stealth duration for a reason initially. However even reverting PU to 1s more stealth will cause the same complaints till a real counter to stealth is put in.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

It seems like the majority of players think PU is too strong. Which would you guys prefer as the solution to this, assuming the devs have infinite time to fix this?

1. Nerf PU to be less duration.
2. Nerf Stealth itself to stack fewer times.
3. Nerf Stealth itself to change reveal conditions (On miss for example)
4. Nothing, PU is fine. (explain why)

I’d say make PU back to old +1 second stealth duration.
To compensate the duration lost, the new PU will now remove 1 condition every time someone get “reveal” status from the caster’s stealth. The boon part remains as same, but remove aegis, and include all other boons (except resistance) in the list of boons

This will promote active play-style of using stealth, so camping in stealth would not benefit the caster too much.

zinkz.7045:

This game has the most forgiving, imbalanced (in terms of risk vs reward especially) stealth system I’ve ever played, in most MMOs damage brings you out of stealth, you are severely limited in your ability to stealth in combat, your movement speed is slower in stealth, there are normally consumables that any class can use to detect stealthed players, you can’t stealth other players and so on, the “counterplay” to stealth in GW2 is a joke.

Slightly off topic, but the most forgiving was easily WoW. I could enter a fight, get dotted up, cloak of shadows, vanish and just run. I had stuns and ways to control my target.

In WoW, rarely did anyone know they were about to get attacked. In Gw2 it’s , “Hey look, it’s a thief— /thief stealths , hmm I wonder what is going to happen now?”

It was simpler in any other mmo I’ve ever played to get into stealth and just camp in stealth. There were no combo fields. Want stealth? Push the stealth button.

There was no 2 step combo fields, no abilities to miss…and there also wasn’t any ways to chain stealth. I could stealth in WoW and DAOC till the cows came home. But, once you started a fight, you had to finish it.

In shadowbane, in DAOC, in WoW, in Warhammer and in AION, damage would bring you out of stealth.

Not in any of those games could someone use a consumable to negate the class mechanic of stealth. What game are you talking about?

Jashugan.4820:

PU right now, especially with mass invis, is pretty broken. In WvW where roaming in groups is a thing i highly doubt that ppl didn’t happen to run into 5 ppl groups with at least 2 mesmers. not to mention how strong mass invis allready is in a premade group with access to teamspeak or any other form of communication, the bonus stealth-duration, made it rediculous.

So what you’re saying is, Thief is no longer the only class to stealth a group. I’m… shocked. Especially because I’m using my elite + a GM trait to do this, compared to a thief’s utility skill. Who would have thunk that mine is not rubbish in comparison as it used to be :P

Btw, that’s not “broken”.
What you state is that you consider it overpowered. That’s not “broken”, as the difference in word choice hints at already.

But as I said, how is it overpowered if Thieves can do nearly the same thing, and our skill is an Elite? Mind you I don’t advocate class-to-class envy, but if group-stealthing is an issue, remove it from both classes. If it ain’t, let us have our fun.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

It seems like the majority of players think PU is too strong. Which would you guys prefer as the solution to this, assuming the devs have infinite time to fix this?

1. Nerf PU to be less duration.
2. Nerf Stealth itself to stack fewer times.
3. Nerf Stealth itself to change reveal conditions (On miss for example)
4. Nothing, PU is fine. (explain why)

1. Less duration, +1 second as it was.

Remove aegis from the boon pool.

Still allow people to chain stealth, and burst/open from stealth as that was fine anyway – want to target balance on the trait, not harming all other stealth skills. With reveal on miss – check with thieves first, they might be up in arms about messing with that so I say leave it alone.

Also, buff veil to compensate – perhaps longer duration.

Then buff/fix The Pledge to flat 20% cooldown reduction.

I wouldn’t say a majority of players think PU is OP, SPvP just happens to have a very vocal playerbase. Reactions ingame have been mixed, but especially on the forums you need to account for observational bias. People that don’t have a problem with it are going to be far less likely to post a thread claiming it needs to be nerfed than someone who was recently angered by a PU mesmer and hates stealth skills, thus making it look like everyone on the forums hates PU. People without strong feelings on the topic are going to be far less motivated to post about it at all.

As for my opinion. I’m happy with how PU is now. I don’t run it that often, but I like that I can switch out either of the other chaos GM traits and completely change my playstyle while still being viable. Nerfing it back to +1 second but leaving the same boons would just be reverting it and wouldn’t really feel like a difficult choice between the other two traits anymore. If the boons were reverted to the original 3 and duration was nerfed, it’d be ok, but I still prefer the longer stealth duration as it allows for greater repositioning without having to waste blink. And when mesmers main defense is avoiding getting hit, long duration stealth seems like it fits pretty well with that.

As for stealth as a mechanic, I’ve always though that certain things should reveal and certain things shouldn’t, just from a logical standpoint. Blocked attacks should reveal as you’d obviously feel something hitting you. Invuln’d attacks would not cause reveal as they pass right through you. Blind attacks could go either way. If you’re blind and miss them completely, they obviously wouldn’t feel the attack. Part of the reason I’m hesitant is because this would basically just flip the previous role of Mesmer v Thief. With Blinding Dissipation, we could pretty much insure that mesmers never got backstabbed again and that’d be far too great a nerf.

Just for conversation purposes, prior to the patch I thought that applying burn should cause 1 second of reveal upon application(kinda hard to hide when you’re covered in flames). Now that burn is so powerful though, I’m not sure it should have the extra help. Thoughts on that?

Carighan.6758:

Jashugan.4820:

PU right now, especially with mass invis, is pretty broken. In WvW where roaming in groups is a thing i highly doubt that ppl didn’t happen to run into 5 ppl groups with at least 2 mesmers. not to mention how strong mass invis allready is in a premade group with access to teamspeak or any other form of communication, the bonus stealth-duration, made it rediculous.

So what you’re saying is, Thief is no longer the only class to stealth a group. I’m… shocked. Especially because I’m using my elite + a GM trait to do this, compared to a thief’s utility skill. Who would have thunk that mine is not rubbish in comparison as it used to be :P

Btw, that’s not “broken”.
What you state is that you consider it overpowered. That’s not “broken”, as the difference in word choice hints at already.

But as I said, how is it overpowered if Thieves can do nearly the same thing, and our skill is an Elite? Mind you I don’t advocate class-to-class envy, but if group-stealthing is an issue, remove it from both classes. If it ain’t, let us have our fun.

‘’oh thief is not the only class to stealth a group’’ and – news flash – never was, my problem isn’t stealth per se, i’m ok with stealth, however i’m not ok with a that long stealth-duration, that is so easily achieved and offers no counterplay whatsoever. two thiefs constantly stealthing in one skmoke field have to be close to that field, u r able to see AND hit them before they use their leap finisher and u can knock ppl out of a shadow refuge before they get their stealth, furthermore punish them with revealed. a mesmer casting mass invis, being invulnurable buring the cast and then vanishing for 10+ seconds with his whole team, that didn’t even give away any sighn, that their mesmer is about to stealth them, how far is that ok?

yes, i am aware that mass invis is an elite, that’s why i said, it’s allready a very strong ability as it is. and i’m ok with it and what it does, just taken for itself, and i wouldn’t mind if you constantly buff ur teammates during the stealth period, it is an elite after all, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for being completely broken….

I agree with you almost entirely.
But I’d fix a minor error of yours:
Mass invisibility works on 10 targets, so a zerg of 10 within 1200 range getting 10 secs stealth, with addition of constant aegis, protection, regen and stuff.
2 mes = 20 secs minimum. 3 would be 30 seconds.
GL dealing with that.

broken is the right term for that, as it breaks an enjoyable game experience for others.

When I feel like I cannot give up a trait for anything else, to me that says something is too strong.

PU is a must have, and the only reason is the stealth duration. I mean, 6s on decoy’s and 10 on MI? lol you would dumb not to include it in any build and no GM trait in the Mesmer tree can compete.

Jashugan, if we go by that definition of “broken” then Anet have created a very “broken” game. Quickness, resistance, stealth, aegis, invulns, stuns, teleports, elementalists, guards, warrs, thieves, engineers, mesmers, ranger longbow, vigor, energy symbols, stealth stomps, portal and half the stuff under the sun of Tyria are “broken”.

So let’s just stick to broken meaning things that are legitimately not working properly so we don’t all have to become mind readers.

Also, thief blackpowder →blinding powder is 6-8s of AoE stealth on an almost instant cast (1/2s), gl interrupting that. While the Mesmer has used an elite and their highest cool down and most defensive skill possible to get that 10s stealth. Seems a fair trade imo.

That’s without mentioning you made no response on what the PvP forum specialist asked for which is how would you change it.

I have made mine repeatedly, nerfing stealth duration won’t stop the QQ, only put it back onto thieves till trapper rune guards start melting people. What stealth needs is real counters.

Why not add AoE reveal onto ranger pet F2 onto wilting strike or invigorating bond?
Why not add reveal to fear me for warriors?
Why not make dhuumfire reveal hit foes or allow necro to inflict reveal upon entering DS?

In other words give people tools to be able to bring someone out of stealth every now and then.

dank.3680:

When I feel like I cannot give up a trait for anything else, to me that says something is too strong.

PU is a must have, and the only reason is the stealth duration. I mean, 6s on decoy’s and 10 on MI? lol you would dumb not to include it in any build and no GM trait in the Mesmer tree can compete.

Well you think this way…….I consider immobilize on interupt way stronger than PU in team play….

Jashugan, if we go by that definition of “broken” then Anet have created a very “broken” game. Quickness, resistance, stealth, aegis, invulns, stuns, teleports, elementalists, guards, warrs, thieves, engineers, mesmers, ranger longbow, vigor, energy symbols, stealth stomps, portal and half the stuff under the sun of Tyria are “broken”.

’’ 1. (General) Something/Someone that is so good in a particular context that it eclipses saecond place.

2. (Games) A game object or facility that is too good to exist. It is so powerful that it is unbalancing and hence breaks the game. Every winning player has to use this to be competitive.

Entymology: The power cards from Magic The Gathering (Black Lotus, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, all Moxen, etc) were so powerful and unbalancing that they were eventually banned from tournament play because they BROKE the game.

Bobby Fisher is a completely broken chess player. ’’

apharma.3741:

Also, thief blackpowder ->blinding powder is 6-8s of AoE stealth on an almost instant cast (1/2s), gl interrupting that. While the Mesmer has used an elite and their highest cool down and most defensive skill possible to get that 10s stealth. Seems a fair trade imo.

there is a difference, between an aoe stealth with a radius of 240 and an aoe stealth 1,2k range… apparently i fail to see what that might be. ginving stealth to 10 people, allmost no matter how kittenin far away they r from the mesmer casting it, is allready more than reasonable for me to be an elite with high cd. it’s not a fair trade… mass invis was very good and very strong as it was before, i don’t see why on earth it was necessary to buff it in a such reduculous way.

That’s without mentioning you made no response on what the PvP forum specialist asked for which is how would you change it.

I have made mine repeatedly, nerfing stealth duration won’t stop the QQ, only put it back onto thieves till trapper rune guards start melting people. What stealth needs is real counters.

hmmm yeh right, cuz i didn’t say that the reveal applying skills that the game has to offer r crap. doesn’t that include, that there should be better options to apply reveal? like, how i said maybe on skills/traits that would make sense to have, even if u r facing a class/build with no stealth whatsoever, like condi removes can even make sense against a power match-up aswell. sry, but u don’t have to be a mind reader to understand what is implied, unless u r forcing urself into it.

Why not add AoE reveal onto ranger pet F2 onto wilting strike or invigorating bond?
Why not add reveal to fear me for warriors?
Why not make dhuumfire reveal hit foes or allow necro to inflict reveal upon entering DS?

In other words give people tools to be able to bring someone out of stealth every now and then.

or being reveald skills aoe with no need for a target. you made some nice suggestions, giving u that. here have a cookie. however none of the things u said justifies a +100% stealth duration buff the mesmer got with his PU, u actually gave another good reason urself, why this change is rediculous and shouldn’t have happened in the first place, a good counterplay against stealth has yet to be applied to the game.

Jashugan.4820:

there is a difference, between an aoe stealth with a radius of 240 and an aoe stealth 1,2k range… apparently i fail to see what that might be.

Then here it is, spelled out:

• MI happens to be equipped in a slot further to the right. Ever noticed that?
• PU happens to preclude you from taking CI, one of the cornerstones of what we as Mesmers even bring to our team in PvP. Same in WvW, we got a few multi-interrupts, CI is an autokill on most people in the context as standing still means instant death.
• MI also happens to have a wee longer cooldown, but I guess that’s a minor detail as you’re tabbed out crying on the forums by the time it’d matter. Sorry ,getting really tired of this constant “WAAAAH, this is so broken ;_;”

I mean yes, maybe PU is too strong (notice: not broken, but I might as well argue with a wall on that one, since PvP whining is inherently education-resistant, I know…), but even then, it is by a minor amount.

We’re talking maybe reducing stealth duration to 66% (giving 5s Prestige, 8s MI, 5s Decoy, 3,5s Veil), or maybe changing the boons assortment.

Though, given ANet’s track record with Mesmers, they’ll probably just remove the duration buff outright, then wonder why neither before nor after anyone picks Mesmers for their teams, but congratulate themselves on a job well done. And probably buff Thieves while they’re at it.

Anyhow, on topic, and serious suggestion this time:

• Remove duration increase entirely.
• Remove boons gained entirely.
• All Illusions stealth with you and stop attacking.
• During stealth, the skills change into a secondary skill, “Swap”. If targeting an illusion, swap with this illusion, both gain 3s of Protection, Swiftness and 10s of Aegis. 1s CD.
• If no target is selected, Swap will use the closest Illusion, but only once (that illusion initially gains a buff which is removed by this auto-swap).
• Swap reveals the illusion and it’ll start attacking again.
• Any otherwise uncloaked illusion will also attack.

PU is in a good place. Nothing to change. Players that goes up against need to change there gamestyle. & they do. The game & playstyle has bin shooked up. Does who steal complains are does who dont want to learn how to play there class & want there easy 2 button mash. Good riddens to them.

I’d just like to say that you can only get 64s of stealth solo stacking (unless you’re in PvE in which case you can have infinite via Ash Legion/Order of Whisper Spy Kits). Obviously it’s not really useful to be running traited Torch, traited Manips, and Decoy, Veil, Mimic, Mass Invis.

What I do is Veil, start casting MI, run into Veil (right about when MI finishes), instantly Prestige, Mimic Decoyx2. Spam Prestige and Decoy until you pop out of stealth.

If you have Ash Legion and Order of Whisper Spy Kits, use an OoW kit right as your stealth ends to get 3s of Stealth (not Hide in Shadows). This brings your torch off cooldown so you can maintain stealth. Your other skills should be getting off cooldown, so wait on Decoy for Mimicoy. Drop a Veil, run through, Mass Invis, proceed to spam Torch Mimicoy. When the stealth is about to end, use Ash Legion Spy Kit this time, there is no timer so you have to count to 10 (you also can’t move, iirc) followed by OoW (or vice versa if you wish). Then proceed to continue Torch Decoy spam. When the stealth ends again, you can use OoW kit, then OoW + AL kit, then OoW kit, etc, etc, etc.

Also I realized while testing this that the Torch trait is actually pretty cool (if you maintain long durations of stealth) because 1.5% (0.015) of 30s is 0.45 meaning your cooldown is reduced by exactly 33% (1/3) if you have 100% stealth uptime (not that you ever really do, but I mean, shhhh) since for every 10 seconds you lose kitten so the Prestige cooldown effectively becomes (while permastealthed) 21 seconds (intervals at 1s, so you get 20 intervals reducing the cooldown by 9s and the final interval doesn’t reduce anything since it’s off).

Sorry I just wanted to play around with perma stealth. Won’t be as fun as the perma stealth bug but it’s still kinda nifty. (I really like how Prestige explodes at 6s when traited with PU, iirc it used to explode at 3 regardless of PU when PU added 1s. Maybe I’m crazy.)

Jashugan.4820:

The PU changes on mesmer r a joke, a rly bad joke… at least I gotta hope so.

PU right now, especially with mass invis, is pretty broken. In WvW where roaming in groups is a thing i highly doubt that ppl didn’t happen to run into 5 ppl groups with at least 2 mesmers. not to mention how strong mass invis allready is in a premade group with access to teamspeak or any other form of communication, the bonus stealth-duration, made it rediculous.
yes, other classes, mostly lookin at thief here, can stealth a whole groupe for a very long time too, BUT…. if a thief does so, u r mostly forced to stand really close to him and if taking shadow refuge, forced to stand in a specific area, for a certain duration, otherwise you won’t even be stealthed and punished with the reveald debuff instead. mass invis affects all allies in 1200 range which means both mesmer and his teammates r pretty much unbound to where they stand and what they do, they don’t have to gather together, the mesmer isn’t forced to stand fairly still, placing a smoke field and using explo finishers, no. still the mesmer and his teammates will disappear for 10 kittening seconds, cuz the mesmer menaged to hit 1 button, with his f4 there won’t be even that much counterplay in interrupting him before the cast finishes. as said, mass invis in a premade group is allready pretty strong to beginn with and i’m not a mesmer main, so i’m not sure whether teammates are affected by the bonus stealth-duration or not.

Capturing and defending a keep, became frustrating for a lot of people. i’ve seen a lot of people here writing about those 1-hit mesmers and i do agree, that the mesmer has other things rather than PU to should have taken a look at, but there are also a kitten lot of other mesmers running around with tank gear, only equipted and traited to hide in a keep, till they can port in their zerg. finding some of those, while they sit 24/7 in stealth is a huge pain in the kitten , especially in the borderlands bay, where a mesmer can get pretty mobile in the water without really relying on stealth in case of revealed debuff caused by a stealth trap, he will simply swim that time out. jump into the water, get out, blink up the ledge to save time (since a lot of classes still would have to walk that way) and if ur opponent gets to u jump back into the water and repeat… oh no wait, you should be able to stealth again now.

this whole thing about other classes being able to put on the revealed debuff is bullkitten… yes, there are classes that can put on a revealed debuff, but at first by far not every class has access to such abilities and the classes that have, don’t have great abilities to do that, any other ability is most likley to be a better choice overall. being forced into something that comparably weak feels kitten. one could argue, that if you play against a condi class, one is forced to play with more condi remove, but thing is, a lot of condition removing traits/skills are still usefull against none condition classes/builds (a removed imobelize is a removed imobelize after all) and any class can be encounterd as a condition version, whereas access to stealth is not a common thing. i don’t want to be foced to play with reveal, because mesmer and this PU kitten has become the flavor of the month, especially in wvw. oh and i was only talking about the bonus stealth duration, not about the mesmer fully regenerating himself in stealth and reengaging as nothing happened, hitting like a brick from a far away distance. it’s just not fun to play against.

but as said, i really think that a lot of other traits/ratios would need a closer look on rather than PU. PU should just be removed, none mesmers kitten about it and mesmer mains say that it ain’t even that great, end the debate :P

also sorry for my bad english.

EDIT: i like how every swearword is replaced by kitten… i like kittens

When I read this Justin timberlake just happened to be in the back ground. Can anyone guess what song was playing? Well I’ll tell you. Cry me a river, so fitting.

Necrotize.2974:

This will probably be a fairly divisive topic judging from what my guildmates had to say, but I’d like to know where everyone stands on Prismatic Understanding. Also a really long post, but if you’re not willing to read it I can’t really force you.

I personally think it is fine as is for a few reasons. Way back before several changes, 1 second of extra stealth really didn’t mean much(hell, thieves got that in a minor trait), but the boons were strong since they were all defensive. Then Swiftness and Might got thrown in, making it a lot less reliable kitten seconds of might when you’ve just entered 4 seconds of stealth is kinda…not useful. So adding Might and Swiftness to the mix was(IMO) a nerf. Increasing the duration to 100% was a good decision because now all the Chaos Grandmaster traits actually feel like build defining traits. It is actually a tough decision to pick one of them, which is how it should be for all trait lines. I’d much rather have tough choices to make instead of entire trait lines that are only really worthwhile if you’re going in for one specific trait. I think this is how all GM traits should be, build and playstyle defining, but not inherently more powerful than the others.

I understand a lot of people’s qualms with PU have to do with stealth. Mesmers, stealth, conditions and clones were all things that made for an annoying fight that didn’t require much risk on the mesmer’s part. This strategy was only really viable and common in WvW roaming(which is btw not a gamemode the game is balanced around) and was essentially useless in 2 of the 3 gamemodes(SPvP and PvE). Long duration stealth doesn’t help you kill your opponent, that’s why those mesmers relied on clone condition application. With the nerf to maim, this strategy is a lot less viable, especially now that burning has become king of dmg conditions and mesmers have almost no way to apply it, let alone stack it.

I’ve started using PU in SPvP as sort of an offpoint harasser and sidecapper. I can say from experience that while 100% duration is a lot, I almost never stay in stealth for that long. Staying in stealth for that long just gives your opponent time to regain cds and prepare. I use stealth for re-positioning, which the added duration is great for. If it were reverted to its previous iteration of 1 extra second and random picks from 5 boons, 2 of them being almost useless at that point, I’d probably never consider PU on tier with the other GM traits again. Giving my opponent a chance to recover and coming out of stealth with 2 stacks of might, some swiftness and maybe one of the defensive buffs really doesn’t seem worthy of a GM trait and if I really wanted boons that badly, I’d just go for Bountiful Disillusionment.

Also keep in mind that Anet seems to be moving towards more reveal access for certain classes. Engi’s lock-on, the spoiled guardian trap, ranger shout and WvW’s stealth trap are all good sources of reveal, so please don’t come to this thread just to complain about stealth. I want to hear opinions on Prismatic Understanding on MESMERS, not stealth in general and not cross class comparisons.

Anybody who has played for at least an hour in wvw and was not a mesmer will tell you this build is supremely broken with no risk at all. It is just THAT bad. At least in WvW.

Carighan.6758:

Jashugan.4820:

there is a difference, between an aoe stealth with a radius of 240 and an aoe stealth 1,2k range… apparently i fail to see what that might be.

Then here it is, spelled out:

• MI happens to be equipped in a slot further to the right. Ever noticed that?

yeh thanks for pointing that out… not that i didn’t mention it myslef like 1 sentence later.

• PU happens to preclude you from taking CI, one of the cornerstones of what we as Mesmers even bring to our team in PvP. Same in WvW, we got a few multi-interrupts, CI is an autokill on most people in the context as standing still means instant death.
• MI also happens to have a wee longer cooldown, but I guess that’s a minor detail as you’re tabbed out crying on the forums by the time it’d matter. Sorry ,getting really tired of this constant “WAAAAH, this is so broken ;_;”

‘’Capturing and defending a keep, became frustrating for a lot of people. i’ve seen a lot of people here writing about those 1-hit mesmers and i do agree, that the mesmer has other things rather than PU to should have taken a look at.’’ if u want to pin me down on something, go ahead, but read the whole argument then. this topic is about PU, so we talk about PU, not CI, not grenade barrage, not rampage and so on.

I mean yes, maybe PU is too strong (notice: not broken, but I might as well argue with a wall on that one, since PvP whining is inherently education-resistant, I know…), but even then, it is by a minor amount.

cool, i didn’t even mention spvp or duelling once. hence go with this one, since it also applies to something i did actually mention, being wvw group roaming and taking/defending keeps.

Anybody who has played for at least an hour in wvw and was not a mesmer will tell you this build is supremely broken with no risk at all. It is just THAT bad. At least in WvW.

and i agree with that and the whole stealth testing post it referred to.

We’re talking maybe reducing stealth duration to 66% (giving 5s Prestige, 8s MI, 5s Decoy, 3,5s Veil), or maybe changing the boons assortment.

Though, given ANet’s track record with Mesmers, they’ll probably just remove the duration buff outright, then wonder why neither before nor after anyone picks Mesmers for their teams, but congratulate themselves on a job well done. And probably buff Thieves while they’re at it.

whilst expecting or rather hoping for the nerf bat, i do also hope, that mesmer stays viable. generally i don’t think it’s bad that the mesmer got buffed, but not the way it has happened, not talking bout PU only here tho. as for PU however i hope that something is changed about it in wvw, i don’t care if it stays as it is now in pvp or pve, but a class that can port in an entire zerg staying unreveald for so long is kitten. but who knows maybe the new borderlands will help fixing that, though i have a feeling that with the upgrade changes, wvw will become more of a karma-fest.

Cut the stealth bonus. By how much, I don’t know… maybe make it +1 or 2 seconds. Yesterday I fought a bunch of mesmers (some of them using PU) as a warrior and later ran a PU setup myself:

Fighting them was ridiculous… I was playing a warrior with about as much mobility as you can get, some control, and lots of killing power, but it didn’t matter because the mesmers could disengage incredibly easily if they were ever in any real trouble.

Running the PU mesmer was also ridiculous. I should be considered, on all accounts, just trash on my mesmer. I like it a lot, I just lack practice so my reaction time isn’t as good as it needs to be and I’m still figuring out burst options and positioning. I was in a wvw havoc and it was so facerollingly easy to get the bursts out and to apply constant pressure it was embarrassing. I also didn’t die once, even if the rest of my party wiped, because the stealth and escape are so good.

So that’s some anecdotal evidence from both sides of the equation. It shouldn’t be so easy for crappy players (me as a mes) to defeat skilled players (me as a warrior). I’m supportive of most of the buffs the mesmer got this round, but the stealth on PU is ridiculous.

Choppy.4183:

Cut the stealth bonus. By how much, I don’t know… maybe make it +1 or 2 seconds. Yesterday I fought a bunch of mesmers (some of them using PU) as a warrior and later ran a PU setup myself:

Fighting them was ridiculous… I was playing a warrior with about as much mobility as you can get, some control, and lots of killing power, but it didn’t matter because the mesmers could disengage incredibly easily if they were ever in any real trouble.

Running the PU mesmer was also ridiculous. I should be considered, on all accounts, just trash on my mesmer. I like it a lot, I just lack practice so my reaction time isn’t as good as it needs to be and I’m still figuring out burst options and positioning. I was in a wvw havoc and it was so facerollingly easy to get the bursts out and to apply constant pressure it was embarrassing. I also didn’t die once, even if the rest of my party wiped, because the stealth and escape are so good.

So that’s some anecdotal evidence from both sides of the equation. It shouldn’t be so easy for crappy players (me as a mes) to defeat skilled players (me as a warrior). I’m supportive of most of the buffs the mesmer got this round, but the stealth on PU is ridiculous.

I had the exact same experience. Mesmer is FAR from my main and I had to be kittening reckless even before the patch to die when I played one who has invested into a minimum of stealth. Now, it’s just a joke in WvW. No wonder no matter where I roam I invariably run into entire parties of kittening mesmers. They are everywhere ATM.

Necrotize.2974:

I wouldn’t say a majority of players think PU is OP, SPvP just happens to have a very vocal playerbase. Reactions ingame have been mixed, but especially on the forums you need to account for observational bias.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Carighan.6758:

I mean yes, maybe PU is too strong (notice: not broken, but I might as well argue with a wall on that one, since PvP whining is inherently education-resistant, I know…), but even then, it is by a minor amount.

This is it, exactly. Mesmers can maybe stay in Stealth slightly too long for the purposes of WvW roaming. That’s… about the only problem. A Mesmer who hides in stealth for 60 seconds in SPvP is literally just taking himself out of the match for 60 seconds, so there’s no real need for a nerf there.

Though, given ANet’s track record with Mesmers, they’ll probably just remove the duration buff outright, then wonder why neither before nor after anyone picks Mesmers for their teams, but congratulate themselves on a job well done. And probably buff Thieves while they’re at it.

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow!

This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.

Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.

Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.

Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.

If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.

apharma.3741:

This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.

Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.

Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.

Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.

If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.

Have you been on the receiving end of such mesmers? I get that it is fun to play them, and I have played them myself, but come on… And the stealth trap as a counter? You serious here?

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

apharma.3741:

This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.

Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.

Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.

Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.

If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.

Have you been on the receiving end of such mesmers? I get that it is fun to play them, and I have played them myself, but come on… And the stealth trap as a counter? You serious here?

Yes I have played against them, I even did it this morning on my (very neglected) ranger as I was setting up a WvW build and very rarely have I lost because of PU. When I have lost its because someone else +1 the fight.

Mesmer burst is easy to predict if you know what you’re looking for. I guess my experience with mesmer is what meant I wasn’t being killed by them.

Mesmers used to be very easy kills, if you trained them down they were in a lot of trouble as the stealth they had didn’t last long enough to really put distance and stand a good chance of getting far enough away, remember all classes but guard are faster than Mesmer in WvW especially in roaming specs.

apharma.3741:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

apharma.3741:

This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.

Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.

Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.

Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.

If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.

Have you been on the receiving end of such mesmers? I get that it is fun to play them, and I have played them myself, but come on… And the stealth trap as a counter? You serious here?

Yes I have played against them, I even did it this morning on my (very neglected) ranger as I was setting up a WvW build and very rarely have I lost because of PU. When I have lost its because someone else +1 the fight.

Mesmer burst is easy to predict if you know what you’re looking for. I guess my experience with mesmer is what meant I wasn’t being killed by them.

Mesmers used to be very easy kills, if you trained them down they were in a lot of trouble as the stealth they had didn’t last long enough to really put distance and stand a good chance of getting far enough away, remember all classes but guard are faster than Mesmer in WvW especially in roaming specs.

You describe a very different experience than mine, but then again I mainly play a zerker staff ele (pretty bad match for me whether shatter or PU). I almost never die when I’m on my mesmer (also zerk) unless I’m being too arrogant. What you describe with mesmer stealth and them not being able to escape absolutely doesn’t jibe with what I’ve experienced on both side of the fence. If I wanted to reset a fight there was barely nothing my opponent could do to prevent it and I got thousands more hours on my ele than on my mesmer so…

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

apharma.3741:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

apharma.3741:

This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.

Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.

Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.

Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.

If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.

Have you been on the receiving end of such mesmers? I get that it is fun to play them, and I have played them myself, but come on… And the stealth trap as a counter? You serious here?

Yes I have played against them, I even did it this morning on my (very neglected) ranger as I was setting up a WvW build and very rarely have I lost because of PU. When I have lost its because someone else +1 the fight.

Mesmer burst is easy to predict if you know what you’re looking for. I guess my experience with mesmer is what meant I wasn’t being killed by them.

Mesmers used to be very easy kills, if you trained them down they were in a lot of trouble as the stealth they had didn’t last long enough to really put distance and stand a good chance of getting far enough away, remember all classes but guard are faster than Mesmer in WvW especially in roaming specs.

You describe a very different experience than mine, but then again I mainly play a zerker staff ele (pretty bad match for me whether shatter or PU). I almost never die when I’m on my mesmer (also zerk) unless I’m being too arrogant. What you describe with mesmer stealth and them not being able to escape absolutely doesn’t jibe with what I’ve experienced on both side of the fence. If I wanted to reset a fight there was barely nothing my opponent could do to prevent it and I got thousands more hours on my ele than on my mesmer so…

Before the patch it was very hard I found to escape, people generally would give chase even if you popped out of stealth 3s distance away. Generally I needed blink and decoy or blink and torch to get away. That or MI. Even then some classes could chase me down.

After patch I can get far enough away that they stop chasing or don’t bother. Still a CD wasted and I wait before engaging again. MI is very strong right now, veil seems about right and torch and decoy are strong but wouldn’t call them as overpowered as others would lead everyone to believe.

Here’s hoping if it does get nerfed they stick it to +2s. We’ll see tomorrow.

apharma.3741:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

apharma.3741:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

apharma.3741:

This whole thing and the vocal people against PU (not that PU was ever short of haters) reminds me of when Rangers got the longbow buff.

Mesmers needed a stealth buff for WvW, as a Mesmer if you were losing a fight or had to disengage you had to use MI and hope you got far enough away that you could get somewhere safe.

Other promising combos were torch and blink or decoy and blink. Other than that you had to rely on your opponent being stupid enough to be fooled by a clone.

Just to remind those who don’t play Mesmer often, there is no cripple or confusion on clone death, no weakness and bleed. Put simply there is no drawback to slaughtering clones and phantasms by the bucket. There is simply very few ways to slow down an enemy from catching you if you’re a Mesmer and need to escape and everyone but guardian is faster than you.

If you’re wrecking people as mesmer, well it’s probably the rapid fire syndrome, people just aren’t used to it yet. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be running over stealth traps everywhere and PU will become a wasted trait, especially when you look at inspiration and illusion GMs.

Have you been on the receiving end of such mesmers? I get that it is fun to play them, and I have played them myself, but come on… And the stealth trap as a counter? You serious here?

Yes I have played against them, I even did it this morning on my (very neglected) ranger as I was setting up a WvW build and very rarely have I lost because of PU. When I have lost its because someone else +1 the fight.

Mesmer burst is easy to predict if you know what you’re looking for. I guess my experience with mesmer is what meant I wasn’t being killed by them.

Mesmers used to be very easy kills, if you trained them down they were in a lot of trouble as the stealth they had didn’t last long enough to really put distance and stand a good chance of getting far enough away, remember all classes but guard are faster than Mesmer in WvW especially in roaming specs.

You describe a very different experience than mine, but then again I mainly play a zerker staff ele (pretty bad match for me whether shatter or PU). I almost never die when I’m on my mesmer (also zerk) unless I’m being too arrogant. What you describe with mesmer stealth and them not being able to escape absolutely doesn’t jibe with what I’ve experienced on both side of the fence. If I wanted to reset a fight there was barely nothing my opponent could do to prevent it and I got thousands more hours on my ele than on my mesmer so…

Before the patch it was very hard I found to escape, people generally would give chase even if you popped out of stealth 3s distance away. Generally I needed blink and decoy or blink and torch to get away. That or MI. Even then some classes could chase me down.

After patch I can get far enough away that they stop chasing or don’t bother. Still a CD wasted and I wait before engaging again. MI is very strong right now, veil seems about right and torch and decoy are strong but wouldn’t call them as overpowered as others would lead everyone to believe.

Here’s hoping if it does get nerfed they stick it to +2s. We’ll see tomorrow.

I don’t want the mesmer to get nerf. I love the mesmer concept a lot. I just think that some game mechanics in the game are cancerous and that unfortunately mesmers benefit a bit too much from that cancer in WvW at the moment.

apharma, that’s kind of the point. You now have the ability to disengage at will with no real counterplay, so you can deliver your burst with virtually no risk., rinse , and repeat.

I don’t think anyone here is saying mesmers have to be gutted, we’re talking about one aspect of one trait that just got a massive boost, and it’s not even a trait that’s necessary for mesmers to be viable (as evidenced by how many don’t run it).

Stop complaining and adjust. I almost exclusively run an anti-stealth SD engineer build specifically designed to cull the Mesmer population. Put an SD engi in your party the next time you leave your keep

Choppy.4183:

apharma, that’s kind of the point. You now have the ability to disengage at will with no real counterplay, so you can deliver your burst with virtually no risk., rinse , and repeat.

But… if I disengage, then what have I won? Nothing.

I try the alpha burst, it fails, I escape. Considering that points are gained for controlling objectives, I hardly contribute to winning the fight here, plus if anyone so much at sneezes into this 1v1 encounter I’m dead.

That’s assuming power-PU, ofc. condi shatter-PU and you got a wholly different issue in that while you can win 1v1s via attrition, you’re rubbish outside of stopping any solo runner, a lot like – and hence it’s so familiar – those 1v1 stealth highwayman thieves.

It’s really not that big a thing. Sure it helps you survive but… well… so you can survive a fight which the game isn’t even balancing for, /weak_cheer. Not really impressed by that.

Stealthing 10 people for 10s and then a zerg via Veil for 4s are the points you could argue with me about balancing on, but 1v1 fights? Really? Who cares, the devs certainly don’t.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Necrotize.2974:

This will probably be a fairly divisive topic judging from what my guildmates had to say, but I’d like to know where everyone stands on Prismatic Understanding. Also a really long post, but if you’re not willing to read it I can’t really force you.

I personally think it is fine as is for a few reasons. Way back before several changes, 1 second of extra stealth really didn’t mean much(hell, thieves got that in a minor trait), but the boons were strong since they were all defensive. Then Swiftness and Might got thrown in, making it a lot less reliable kitten seconds of might when you’ve just entered 4 seconds of stealth is kinda…not useful. So adding Might and Swiftness to the mix was(IMO) a nerf. Increasing the duration to 100% was a good decision because now all the Chaos Grandmaster traits actually feel like build defining traits. It is actually a tough decision to pick one of them, which is how it should be for all trait lines. I’d much rather have tough choices to make instead of entire trait lines that are only really worthwhile if you’re going in for one specific trait. I think this is how all GM traits should be, build and playstyle defining, but not inherently more powerful than the others.

I understand a lot of people’s qualms with PU have to do with stealth. Mesmers, stealth, conditions and clones were all things that made for an annoying fight that didn’t require much risk on the mesmer’s part. This strategy was only really viable and common in WvW roaming(which is btw not a gamemode the game is balanced around) and was essentially useless in 2 of the 3 gamemodes(SPvP and PvE). Long duration stealth doesn’t help you kill your opponent, that’s why those mesmers relied on clone condition application. With the nerf to maim, this strategy is a lot less viable, especially now that burning has become king of dmg conditions and mesmers have almost no way to apply it, let alone stack it.

I’ve started using PU in SPvP as sort of an offpoint harasser and sidecapper. I can say from experience that while 100% duration is a lot, I almost never stay in stealth for that long. Staying in stealth for that long just gives your opponent time to regain cds and prepare. I use stealth for re-positioning, which the added duration is great for. If it were reverted to its previous iteration of 1 extra second and random picks from 5 boons, 2 of them being almost useless at that point, I’d probably never consider PU on tier with the other GM traits again. Giving my opponent a chance to recover and coming out of stealth with 2 stacks of might, some swiftness and maybe one of the defensive buffs really doesn’t seem worthy of a GM trait and if I really wanted boons that badly, I’d just go for Bountiful Disillusionment.

Also keep in mind that Anet seems to be moving towards more reveal access for certain classes. Engi’s lock-on, the spoiled guardian trap, ranger shout and WvW’s stealth trap are all good sources of reveal, so please don’t come to this thread just to complain about stealth. I want to hear opinions on Prismatic Understanding on MESMERS, not stealth in general and not cross class comparisons.

Anybody who has played for at least an hour in wvw and was not a mesmer will tell you this build is supremely broken with no risk at all. It is just THAT bad. At least in WvW.

And I’d be willing to bet it’d be coming from a 1v1 or small group roaming perspective, which may come as a shock to you, but those aren’t supported game modes. This game isn’t balanced around 1v1s or 2v2 in an area expanding almost endlessly on all sides with no real objective other than to kill as many people as possible. If it was, there’d be no need for zergs in WvW, everyone would just run in small groups or go solo. PU has always been superior when it came to dueling because there’s no real objective other than to slowly win. There’s no downside to backing out to reset the fight in a 1v1 in WvW.

As for PU’s contribution to a zerg(the other two GM traits would probably be better suited for a zerg though), the only big impact is on Veil, and stealthing an entire zerg for greater than 2 seconds was nothing a few mesmers couldn’t accomplish already anyway.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

It seems like the majority of players think PU is too strong. Which would you guys prefer as the solution to this, assuming the devs have infinite time to fix this?

1. Nerf PU to be less duration.
2. Nerf Stealth itself to stack fewer times.
3. Nerf Stealth itself to change reveal conditions (On miss for example)
4. Nothing, PU is fine. (explain why)

I would change (3), as that seems to be getting more to the root of the problem.

If you had it so using ANY ability while in stealth got you out of stealth, stealth would be much less problematic. No charging mantras in stealth, no misc buffing, no summoning clones, etc.

This would also hit thief somewhat hard which is fine.

Carighan.6758:

But… if I disengage, then what have I won? Nothing.

I try the alpha burst, it fails, I escape. Considering that points are gained for controlling objectives, I hardly contribute to winning the fight here, plus if anyone so much at sneezes into this 1v1 encounter I’m dead.

That’s assuming power-PU, ofc. condi shatter-PU and you got a wholly different issue in that while you can win 1v1s via attrition, you’re rubbish outside of stopping any solo runner, a lot like – and hence it’s so familiar – those 1v1 stealth highwayman thieves.

It’s really not that big a thing. Sure it helps you survive but… well… so you can survive a fight which the game isn’t even balancing for, /weak_cheer. Not really impressed by that.

Stealthing 10 people for 10s and then a zerg via Veil for 4s are the points you could argue with me about balancing on, but 1v1 fights? Really? Who cares, the devs certainly don’t.

Actually what you have ‘won’ is not having to run all the way back from a waypoint, and continue doing whatever it is you were doing. Hitting dolyaks/camps/tagging keeps to stop waypointing are all very effective when you can just keep resetting fights. Think about it, people sweep keeps not because they want the loot bag from that one Mesmer, but because of what they can do when left unchecked. Same with roamers and all the actions listed above.

With that being said, Thieves have been doing this for years (and still are, with stealth and bettter mobility) and Anet doesn’t seem to care. So I don’t see why they would nerf PU over this issue.

Yes I agree it’s cheese and fighting someone who either wins or escapes is annoying, but Anet hasn’t done anything for ages about an issue which existed – and still exists – before the patch anyway. And no, stealth trap doesn’t count when I can just shadowstep away.

TLDR: Anet doesn’t care about roamers.

I can’t believe people are crying so much for nerfs. What do you want exactly? A PU nerf? Yes sure, let ANEt nerf PU. You know how ANet nerf things, don’t you? And it’s not like people will still be able to stun 100-0 from stealth. So what? A little stun nerf now? Of course ! But, but, mesmer can still 100-0 from stealth? How come? We nerfed PU and their stun ! Ohhhh, yes we forgot to nerf mind wrack. Now that’s it, mesmer is balanced.

Happy?

Necrotize.2974:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Necrotize.2974:

This will probably be a fairly divisive topic judging from what my guildmates had to say, but I’d like to know where everyone stands on Prismatic Understanding. Also a really long post, but if you’re not willing to read it I can’t really force you.

I personally think it is fine as is for a few reasons. Way back before several changes, 1 second of extra stealth really didn’t mean much(hell, thieves got that in a minor trait), but the boons were strong since they were all defensive. Then Swiftness and Might got thrown in, making it a lot less reliable kitten seconds of might when you’ve just entered 4 seconds of stealth is kinda…not useful. So adding Might and Swiftness to the mix was(IMO) a nerf. Increasing the duration to 100% was a good decision because now all the Chaos Grandmaster traits actually feel like build defining traits. It is actually a tough decision to pick one of them, which is how it should be for all trait lines. I’d much rather have tough choices to make instead of entire trait lines that are only really worthwhile if you’re going in for one specific trait. I think this is how all GM traits should be, build and playstyle defining, but not inherently more powerful than the others.

I understand a lot of people’s qualms with PU have to do with stealth. Mesmers, stealth, conditions and clones were all things that made for an annoying fight that didn’t require much risk on the mesmer’s part. This strategy was only really viable and common in WvW roaming(which is btw not a gamemode the game is balanced around) and was essentially useless in 2 of the 3 gamemodes(SPvP and PvE). Long duration stealth doesn’t help you kill your opponent, that’s why those mesmers relied on clone condition application. With the nerf to maim, this strategy is a lot less viable, especially now that burning has become king of dmg conditions and mesmers have almost no way to apply it, let alone stack it.

I’ve started using PU in SPvP as sort of an offpoint harasser and sidecapper. I can say from experience that while 100% duration is a lot, I almost never stay in stealth for that long. Staying in stealth for that long just gives your opponent time to regain cds and prepare. I use stealth for re-positioning, which the added duration is great for. If it were reverted to its previous iteration of 1 extra second and random picks from 5 boons, 2 of them being almost useless at that point, I’d probably never consider PU on tier with the other GM traits again. Giving my opponent a chance to recover and coming out of stealth with 2 stacks of might, some swiftness and maybe one of the defensive buffs really doesn’t seem worthy of a GM trait and if I really wanted boons that badly, I’d just go for Bountiful Disillusionment.

Also keep in mind that Anet seems to be moving towards more reveal access for certain classes. Engi’s lock-on, the spoiled guardian trap, ranger shout and WvW’s stealth trap are all good sources of reveal, so please don’t come to this thread just to complain about stealth. I want to hear opinions on Prismatic Understanding on MESMERS, not stealth in general and not cross class comparisons.

Anybody who has played for at least an hour in wvw and was not a mesmer will tell you this build is supremely broken with no risk at all. It is just THAT bad. At least in WvW.

And I’d be willing to bet it’d be coming from a 1v1 or small group roaming perspective, which may come as a shock to you, but those aren’t supported game modes. This game isn’t balanced around 1v1s or 2v2 in an area expanding almost endlessly on all sides with no real objective other than to kill as many people as possible. If it was, there’d be no need for zergs in WvW, everyone would just run in small groups or go solo. PU has always been superior when it came to dueling because there’s no real objective other than to slowly win. There’s no downside to backing out to reset the fight in a 1v1 in WvW.

As for PU’s contribution to a zerg(the other two GM traits would probably be better suited for a zerg though), the only big impact is on Veil, and stealthing an entire zerg for greater than 2 seconds was nothing a few mesmers couldn’t accomplish already anyway.

It does come from 1 v1 perspective and such but also from entire groups having very hard time catching ONE mesmer and not all of those trying are bad players at all far from it. When you HAVE to mobilize 10+ ppl just to get ONE guy it’s kittening annoying. And sadly, no, you can’t just ignore that mesmer because if you do all hell will break loose inside any objective it is in as opposed to a thief trolling you while doing the same.

A weird argument is emerging that basically says,

1. Long stealth doesn’t help you in PvP
2. The stealth buff doesn’t matter in zergs
3. 1v1 and small scale Wvw don’t matter
4. (Therefore) the stealth shouldn’t be reduced

If the long stealth doesn’t matter in some areas in the game, that isn’t a reason to keep it, it’s a reason to take those areas out of consideration because they’ll be fine either way. It matters in some areas of the game, and reducing the stealth addresses that while keeping mesmers viable and not impacting other areas of the game.

@ Caraghan
You can completely disengage or you can disengage to reduce the pressure, heal up, and burst again without even leaving combat. This is a thief mechanic and they’ve been balanced for it.

Mesmers can maintain ranged and melee pressure, have quick CD stun breaks, status effects, and quick bursts that are relatively easy to deliver. We’re not taking about taking any of that away from mesmers, only reducing a buff on a trait that was apparently not required, doesn’t matter in some areas of the game, but is OP in other areas of the game.

How is reducing the stealth buff on PU even remotely a controversial point of view?

Choppy.4183:

A weird argument is emerging that basically says,

1. Long stealth doesn’t help you in PvP
2. The stealth buff doesn’t matter in zergs
3. 1v1 and small scale Wvw don’t matter
4. (Therefore) the stealth shouldn’t be reduced

If the long stealth doesn’t matter in some areas in the game, that isn’t a reason to keep it, it’s a reason to take those areas out of consideration because they’ll be fine either way. It matters in some areas of the game, and reducing the stealth addresses that while keeping mesmers viable and not impacting other areas of the game.

Well…

There’s also the argument that “Thieves have been able to do this since forever, so why is everyone fine with them doing it but not Mesmers?”

Because you actually have to sweep in wvw 1 game mode or the Mesmer can port people in. You mean you have to stop the Zerg train more wet eyes.

Funny part is imagine a thief Mesmer team. The thief can perma stealth no sign. At least the Mesmer has cooldowns.

People have complained about thieves, a lot, and they pay a heavy price for their stealth.

@denis
That’s an issue that exists now and why stealth traps were invented. We’re taking about actual fights here.

I’ve yet to hear a reason why the buff should be left as is, and I didn’t hear anyone calling for a stealth buff to PU… ever.

Because it doesn’t effect any game mode. Roaming is not supported. Why shouldn’t the Mesmer have access to a longer escape stealth. Pay attention to the Mesmer burst set ups and counter. If the Mesmer runs so what. Your mad because you cannot kill the Mesmer as easily. The patch has been here 2 weeks. There will be many counters let it shape up. Just nerfing skills because you or anyone has problems is not a reason to nerf something.

I’m agree that PU is a trait that need to be well balanced and controlled.

But that not change the final result in WvW although yes the squads/groups/zerg composition. A strong PU can make fights harder. Although at the end, the server with a combination of bigger player base + a wider coverage time in WvW will almost always win. WvW is naturally unbalanced.

Is a waste of time try to find the mesmers inside your keep, etc? They should die in less than one minute and pass page….! But, Is that not the same as before? A combination of thiefs+mesmer can pemastealth inside the keep now and before.

Is a wasting of resources put lookouts around the map at key points to control the movement of groups or zergs temporarily in stealth? Sure, the fashion is the blob / guild destroying everything in your path. You can log in the TS servers and listen the amazing educational wording/conversation deploying good tactics (be a ball and spam whatever your commander is claiming and shout all that *******). Who cares, often there is someone out there… the bigger player base…

I think that skills like veil, portal, MI, etc, add depth and complexity to tackling fighting.

And I’m agree that this is an issue with the actual fights… But because now WvW seems more like an EOTM 2.0 than other thing.

@Denis
You’re contradicting yourself. If it doesn’t affect any game mode that matters, as far as you’re concerned, then it shouldn’t matter to you if it gets rolled back.

But then you ask why mesmers shouldn’t have long escape, suggesting that it matters on some level. And to that I say they already have it, which is why mesmers without PU are perfectly viable.

The long PU stealth makes that escape, and even mid-fight breathing room, OP relative to the rest of the game. You want long stealth like a thief? Would you be willing to shorten the range and increase the CD on Blink for it? Lower your health pool, perhaps? Increase the shatter skill CD and have it shared across all of them as a global cooldown? I wouldn’t, because it would gut mesmers, but that’s the sort of price thieves pay for their stealth.

Honestly, you sound like the Engineers that claimed Grenadier was balanced while glitched.

PU has a great niche purpose among the other GM traits. In coordinated PvP, it allows you to reposition without having to waste your best stunbreaker(Blink) after getting focused by the opposing team. This enables great side point roaming as well as surprise bursts on other zerkers. The long duration makes PU and stealth stand alone good, whereas before if you really wanted to reposition yourself mid fight after getting focused, you pretty much had to waste Decoy+Blink just to alleviate the pressure, which was part of the reason thieves hard countered mesmer so easily. You pop out of stealth, they port to you and finish you off.

Mesmers are not thieves, so cross class comparisons really don’t prove much of anything. Claiming something should be nerfed because its annoying to fight or hard to catch(when Anet has flat out said that mesmer’s main defense is not getting hit in the first place) just opens up literally every meta build to nerfing. Pu doesn’t strongly impact the meta of any game mode(we’ll see once the meta stabilizes), but its at least a viable option outside of 1v1 roaming now. There is actually a tough choice between chaos GM traits now as all have their purposes and all lend themselves to very different builds.

Comparing people who like PU as is to engineers supporting an obviously unintended and bugged skill is a huge strawman if I ever so one though.

Choppy.4183:

@Denis
You’re contradicting yourself. If it doesn’t affect any game mode that matters, as far as you’re concerned, then it shouldn’t matter to you if it gets rolled back.

But then you ask why mesmers shouldn’t have long escape, suggesting that it matters on some level. And to that I say they already have it, which is why mesmers without PU are perfectly viable.

The long PU stealth makes that escape, and even mid-fight breathing room, OP relative to the rest of the game. You want long stealth like a thief? Would you be willing to shorten the range and increase the CD on Blink for it? Lower your health pool, perhaps? Increase the shatter skill CD and have it shared across all of them as a global cooldown? I wouldn’t, because it would gut mesmers, but that’s the sort of price thieves pay for their stealth.

Honestly, you sound like the Engineers that claimed Grenadier was balanced while glitched.

And yet they are (or at least, were) the most common roaming class by a very large margin. We are discussing WvW right? Well the numbers speak for themselves. Obviously, the price that they ‘pay’ for stealth doesn’t include massive burst, the best mobility in the game, and no cooldowns on weapon skills.

Ya PU is a bit over the top right now but your comparison is so biased it isn’t even funny.

Sunflowers.1729:

Choppy.4183:

A weird argument is emerging that basically says,

1. Long stealth doesn’t help you in PvP
2. The stealth buff doesn’t matter in zergs
3. 1v1 and small scale Wvw don’t matter
4. (Therefore) the stealth shouldn’t be reduced

If the long stealth doesn’t matter in some areas in the game, that isn’t a reason to keep it, it’s a reason to take those areas out of consideration because they’ll be fine either way. It matters in some areas of the game, and reducing the stealth addresses that while keeping mesmers viable and not impacting other areas of the game.

Well…

There’s also the argument that “Thieves have been able to do this since forever, so why is everyone fine with them doing it but not Mesmers?”

That’s basically it, yes.

It’s cheesy, like you said previously, but this is NOT new. What’s new is that mesmers can do it now and not just thieves and that’s WEIRD (for some reason). The duration is fine. The buffs it give are fine.

What needs to change, as has also been said, are there needs to be more ways to REVEAL a target. The length of stealth isn’t the problem it’s the lack of counter play which has been echoed a lot by a few people. But if they nerf PU’s duration they should be fair and gut the thief while they’re at it.

I can also think its fair that casting a phantasm SHOULD count as revealed … unless it misses like the thief blind thing.