Guild Wars 2

Coming primarily from PvP: I’m not psyched by the changes to skill trees. Shattering has been made an impossible to escape from mechanic. I understand that shattering is a core ability for mesmers, but by getting rid of previously supported play paths to lean/push/force people in that direction… well: I don’t like it.

Really all mesmers, viable or not, now fall into three builds: power shatter, condi shatter or Interrupt (with mandatory shatter traits).

This new skill system/tree doesn’t really allow for phantasm builds because half of their traits were removed. It definitely doesn’t support clone death builds as all (both? three?) traits were entirely removed. Also, basing a build around having clones apply conditions has become a significantly less attractive option, given most trees strong focus on shattering.

We’ve gone from having around six build choices, with two to three having questionable viability, to having three builds, all of which are pretty good, but homogeneous in play-style. Am I alone in feeling this way?

All I seem to fight now is an endless stream of shatter mesmers.

Dorkopotamis.1497:

This new skill system/tree doesn’t really allow for phantasm builds because half of their traits were removed.

• We didnt lost phantom builds traits, actually we got two new:

Domination:

15 % extra damage for illusions -> still there

Dueling:

Fury to phantoms -> still there.

Inspiration:

15% phantoms -> Base line now (perphaps need to go to domination for balance sake, not sure yet)

Phantoms give regeneration-> got buffed: now they also are suport since casting them makes you cast signet of inspiration (cd of course) and traited can give distortion (witch can be given to the party thanks to another minor trait-Inspiration).

Phantoms have distortion when spawning-> Still there as an option with an extra.

Mental defense (cast a phantasmal defender on sucefull evade or block)-> NEW.

Retailation phantoms-> Merged (now they only have it for 6 secs)

Phantoms with more HP-> Merged

Illusions:

Phantoms atack 20% faster—-> still there
Phantoms recharge faster when shattered—> NEW

• About the build diversity:

1: We lost the lazy dead illusion create a condition, witch i will put in one as a 4 option to perphaps chaos, just for the (i supose) few mesmers that want it. Probably a grandmaster tier since they were like 3 traits between minor and mayor.

2: Once they fix the balances issues theres probably gonna be shifts in the relative viability between builds, probably for good in build variety.

I disagree completely with your assertions. Mesmer has always had 3 styles of gameplay at its core and continues to have them now:

• Phantasm (power or clone death)
• Shatter (power or torment)
• Interrupt (power or condi)

You had the option of going 100% into any of these three styles, but you could always incorporate varying amounts of each element into your build. Here’s the kicker though: only one build was arguably viable, and that was power shatter.

That simply isn’t the case as of right now. Yes, a lot of the above 3 core playstyles are intermingled, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Literally the only build you can’t play is clone death. Condition builds were severely nerfed as well, but you still can play them. Would you like me to send you a list of potentially decent phantasm builds? Give me a private message, and I will. I’d rather have less diversity with more viable builds than more diversity with 1 viable build.

Also…

Before, there was just one viable power shatter build. Now, you can tweak your power shatter in many different ways. Maybe you want the lockdown capabilities in Chaos for extra boons. Or maybe you’d like more survivability by going into Inspiration. You could specialize into signets or even give a go with the reflective capabilities of manipulation traits. Before, all of this variety under each core playstyle was impossible!! The same goes for Interrupt and Phantasm builds.

With inspiration and chaos rework, support mesmer seems quite viable as well.

Menaka.5092:

With inspiration and chaos rework, support mesmer seems quite viable as well.

Yep, but that would fall under the interrupt/phantasm/shatter. There’s different ways to support!!

Agree with MailMail, and strongly disagree with OP. We have less builds, but more viable builds overall.

One MailMail didn’t even mention is support builds, which also can go at least 2-3 powerful variants. Also there really never was a Bunker type build for Mesmer, but you can achieve this now with the right gear and Insp/Chaos/X.

All in all it’s way too early to say up to what level of competitiveness these builds can/will reach, but each are very viable in unranked team play and far superior to what was available before the patch.

sure the builds are more viable but now every one plays so similar.
i liked being able to go for a less powerful but interesting playstyle.
i feel like the fact that the builds are more powerful shouldn’t make up for the class being more boring.

Dorkopotamis.1497:

I understand that shattering is a core ability for mesmers, but by getting rid of previously supported play paths to lean/push/force people in that direction… well: I don’t like it.

Come to think of it, it isn’t a core mechanic, it is the core mechanic. It’s our class bar. Much more so than illusions, this is our class mechanic. Side-note about why that is badly designed below.

Anyhow, this means that given that context – this being our class bar – ideally all our specs, even Phantasm-builds, would use the shatter skills frequently and equally. It’s our class mechanic after all, it should be what our class centers around.

Side-note:
Shatter as a class mechanic is pretty meh, for this reason: it’s not context-free. We need Illusions to utilize, which we get from other abilities. That’s pretty… uncommon.
It’d make conceptually much more sense to have Clone/Phantasm generation as our class bar, and shatter skills moved off the bar and onto specific weapon- and utility-skills.

I mean, Anet did say that they wanted Shatters to be something all mesmer utlized, not just shatter mesmers. It is the class mechanic after all. They also said they wanted to provide mesmers with a higher skill ceiling and make the class more active, which just wasn’t happening with the Clone Death Condi builds, which basically just ignored their clones and phantasms completely while they just focuses on staying alive while condis slowly piled up.

Its also only been 3 days. I’ve been trying around 2 new builds a day and they all work moderately well in Spvp. Obviously some are better than others, but the fact that there are so many viable options now is great.

Shatter was hit or miss before because it was balanced around Illusionary Persona. IP Mimics the effects of your illusion shatters on yourself. For f2-f4 this just grants you an extra illusion and the ability to trigger them whenever you want (I use F3 and F4 in this manner all the time), however it’s Mind Wrack where it truly shows.

Mind Wrack’s damage doesn’t scale linearly. It deals less damage per illusion the more you have but more damage overall. ie a single illusion might deal 500, but two would deal 350 each (these are just examples but the proportions are approximate). A single illusion Mind Wrack is about 50% of the skill’s damage potential.

IP mimics what your illusions do. So with a single illusion shatter you and your illusion would each deal 500 (2×500). With a two Illusion shatter you’d each do 350 (3×350).

What this means is that a single illusion shatter with IP (2x ~48% dmg) does nearly the damage that a 3 illusion Shatter does without it (3x 33.3%).

We’re all essentially ‘shatter’ Mesmers now. It’s our mechanic. Every build is using it more because it’s more viable and reliable with baseline IP. It’s good that we’re actually using our mechanic instead of ignoring it unless we put a ton of points into Illusions (as it was previously). It would be like a Necromancer who rarely used Shroud. There are builds that are much better at Shroud but they all still make use of it. Mesmers didn’t. That’s how bad off we were and why this is so huge for us.

Also – OP is flat out wrong. For sPvP our build variety consisted of Dom/Duelist/Illusions. Your choice was whether you wanted to be melee shatter or double ranged shatter. Interrupt builds had some success, but they weren’t near as viable as they are now.

IP baseline and Mantra CDs recharging immediately after you prep them has given us a lot of options. Never mind potential mimic shenanigans.

Hell, I’m using freaking ‘Mirror’ in my builds for crying out loud :P

I never liked the shatter mechanic. Even now after 3 years of GW2. I’m going to continue to find ways not to shatter. I don’t like the idea of giving up my phantasms (long term damage) for a dubious short term one.

So I’m tweaking my regular phantasm build, but I stubbornly refuse to shatter. I was good with my previous build, and I will become good with this one too!

I agree with Dastion.

Before the patch mesmers had to make huge compromises to make builds work, this is why they all felt so unique. Now that we have to do less compromise and shatter is useful for any build i can understand why some people feel builds are much more alike then before.

But like Dastion said shatters are our class mechanic! It’s kind of insane to think that it didn’t get used by some mesmer builds before.

I guess my primary problem with shatter skills is that they have a cost associated with them. Other classes get additional abilities for free at no opportunity cost. Necro gets a free life bar and new skills. Thief gets a free steal + extra skills. Guardian gets free passive and free active effects, Warrior burst etc.

But as a mesmer, I always felt that my class mechanic was punishing me for using it. I always feel vulnerable after a shatter. I’ve just given up my damage dealing phantasms, I’ve just given up my clones that hide me. Out of all the classes, only the mesmer has to take a risk while using their “class mechanic”.

Now this is a matter of playstyle, but I don’t like risks. I like to grind down my opponent slowly in a vice grip. For this reason I never go Lord during Foefire when well ahead in points – why take a risk when you can win for sure by just being defensive.

Maybe it’s because of my mentality as a chess player – when you have a material advantage on the board, just go slow, exchange pieces and grind the other guy down. The “risk factor” just doesn’t do it for me.

So as a mesmer, shattering goes completely against my grain. First of all, if the opponent dodges my shatters it’s over. I gave up everything to get nothing. Second, even if it hits I want to make sure he’s dead. Sure, I can just stealth but I dislike PU builds as well because I like to fight on point and I have no intention of just giving the opponent free cap points.

I use shatter only – only – to secure stomps. That is the most risk free shatter skill I know of. The opponent will be dead after the stomp and my illusions will die anyway. So I sacrifice them to end it.

Otherwise, sorry but no. I will continue to pump out phantasms without shattering them and I refuse to waste all of it on a “risk/reward” playstyle. I don’t like risk. I don’t like shatters. And I feel that mesmers got shafted for a class mechanic that forces them into a disadvantage while using it.

P.S: Anet said that people weren’t using shatter enough. Did they ever bother to think about why they don’t have that complaint for any other class? The reason is that the “risk/reward” playstyle isn’t for everyone. And it shouldn’t be the case that mesmers have to play the risk/reward game.

In the end no matter what benefits you give to shattering, the fact is that it elicits a cost from us Mesmers. And for that reason alone it is unappealing. And also, we are the only class that needs to make this trade off.

P.P.S: I think I should make a new thread with my thoughts

Baddies need to learn to adjust to us now. We are no longer an afterthought. Get used to it.

Is what I would say without the impending nerfdoom that’s to come in the next few weeks cause of nerfcriers. If this goes on we’ll get nerfed back to the shatter mes as only viable and then OP will become even more true lol.

tbh, Shatter is actually my favorite second resource for any class..

No Resource should be “free” on use, it shouldnt its a bad set up which Takes risk out the class, Low risk classes just shouldnt exist as kitten, u should have to take risks to perform thats how it works, Playing “safe” 24hours gets tedious and repeatitive, theres nothing there which actually engages fully when theres 0 risk to playing something.

Shatter is exactly that! u lose ur Duplicates, ur more focusable because of that, u lose the extra damage to do one Huge burst on the target, u get in u do ur damage ur Shatter u burst a few down and Get out before ur caught out, they’re Ment to have that Illusion based Assassin game play like that, its what they were designed to do.

More Class Resources need to be made this wayu and less free in their mechanics, both Completely Passive capability and Resources Taking risk out of classes need to be changed tbh.

I dont know how this can be really evaluated badly, why make ur class so much more Passive in capability to avoid a Risk, the Risk has a huge reward behind it and is worth the Risk.

I think this is more of a perspective thing.

Before the patch nearly every Mesmer was shoehorned into certain builds/traits with nearly as many lousy useless traits as good ones (and plenty questionable traits inbetween). Even phantasm builds struggled outside of PvE.

Now that things have been switched up, it may feel like there is less diversity,but that is mostly because people are trying to recreate their old builds in this new system. I took the opposite approach and looked at what new sort of builds could be made with the revamped system and so far I’ve seen:

• Shatter (at least 3 variations)
• Lockdown (3 variations)
• Signets (2 variations)
• Support (4 variations)
• Phantasm
• Condition (2 variations)
• Mantra

From what I’ve seen so far, nearly every build has gotten buffed in some way and new builds have become viable. I don’t really see any loss here besides clone death.

Actually it allows phantasm builds to be more versatile than ever. And trust me, changing one trait or two (for me) gives the impression that their playstyle has a certain uniqueness to the usual thing that you’ll see.

To put it short, phantasm builds are more diverse than before. We have better acces to increase phantasm damage and still have room to choose whatever the hell we want. If you want the traditional phantasm, go Inspiration! If you want to shatter in a phantasm build, take Illusions and that line will open up new possibilities to screw your opponent! You want to cc your opponents? Take lockdown!

Also Anet ISN’T forcing us to shatter. They’re encouraging us, but they know how much some people would shy away from shattering in a phantasm build and so they gave us nice alternative options. I’ve made threads about praising phantasm builds and finally I hope that it gets some light on it!

@Chaos

I wanna say that there should be… at least three variations.