Guild Wars 2

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Persistence_of_Memory
Oh no :c nerfed from 2s to 1s
Saw it coming for a while, though, as it’s really broken with Chronophantasma.

Yay, yet more nerfs to core Mesmer because it synergies too well with the elite spec.

You also missed out the cool down increase to mental defence btw.

apharma.3741:

Yay, yet more nerfs to core Mesmer because it synergies too well with the elite spec.

Exactly. Mesmer core is already a mess. They shouldn’t take decisions based on the elite spec. Sigh.

Thanks again, eSports.

This further supports the point of view that elite trait lines will be mandatory from now into the future, because this change is solely based around Shield 4 and Chronophantasma.

Same with the Mental Defence nerf – and leaving the utility skill cooldown alone? Doesn’t make sense and again assumes Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory are being used.

But I don’t care because I neither use Shield or use Persistence of Memory. Actually I’m happy because I’ll have an easier time fighting mesmers who use Shield. :}

ANet destabilzed our rectum once again. Did I say that right, Ross?

“Echo of Memory: The recharge of this skill will now begin when Time Echo’s effect ends.”

Am I reading this correctly, as in shield block will not go on recharge until the 2nd block is used? And not only does that already suck, PoM won’t affect it until then either?

Dethl.2875:

“Echo of Memory: The recharge of this skill will now begin when Time Echo’s effect ends.”

Am I reading this correctly, as in shield block will not go on recharge until the 2nd block is used? And not only does that already suck, PoM won’t affect it until then either?

Yep that’s what it’s looking like in game. I think this got a bit over nerfed (with PoM) but it’s not terrible. Maybe just start with echo of memory but they went with both.

Also I echo what others have said, the core specs just continue to sadly get dumped on.

stop crying, echo of memory really needed a nerf and it was bound to happen.

Knoptix.5712:

stop crying, echo of memory really needed a nerf and it was bound to happen.

This thread is about Persistence of Memory, not Echo of Memory.

I’m happy about the Shield 4 nerf – it was necessary.

Mental Defence and Persistence of Memory nerfs just reinforce the supremacy of elite specs over core only builds.

Curunen.8729:

This further supports the point of view that elite trait lines will be mandatory from now into the future, because this change is solely based around Shield 4 and Chronophantasma.

Same with the Mental Defence nerf – and leaving the utility skill cooldown alone? Doesn’t make sense and again assumes Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory are being used.

But I don’t care because I neither use Shield or use Persistence of Memory. Actually I’m happy because I’ll have an easier time fighting mesmers who use Shield. :}

That’s actually something which has been bothering me for quite a while. In the past, DE has been mandatory. Nowadays, it’s Chronophantasma + IR plus ideally PoM.

DE has been nerfed into the ground by the changes to Vigor and Sigils of Energy. Nerfing another one of the few alternatives will force us into the same traitlines even more. Instead, we actually need additional traits which generate Illusions or speed up the generation and those would have to be spread evenly across all (or at least most) trait lines. #builddiversity

Some ideas:

• Move IR somewhere else…
• Reduce Illusion cooldowns when interrupting an enemy (ICD)
• Illusion cooldowns recharge faster while affected by Chaos Armor/an aura (Yeah, I know… Chaotic Dampening didn’t work so well… but this is different, I promise )

On top of that, we really need viable (not meta) alternatives for condition removal outside of traits in Inspiration. E.g. buffs to baseline Arcane Thievery and Nullfield.

I think we mesmers players need mental defense in reality from Anet, I mean based on what they nerf things? =p

I swear its like every patch we are expecting nerfs to mesmers, and they obviously only look at this pvp stand on point smash keyboard. they forgot that there is pve and wvw.

Keep "shaving things, soon you will shave the Mesmer by mistake too, and we will have one leg, one arm, one eye etc =p

Xaylin.1860:

ANet destabilzed our rectum once again. Did I say that right, Ross?

From a purely professional opinion, yes. Yes you did.

Plus, if anything make them mutually exclusive by pushing them onto the same choice but in a much stronger setup. As in, “do you want a higher phantasm-uptime, or do you want faster phantasm cooldowns”? Both sound like they’d ultimately do the same thing, but that’s not true and there’s a lot of nuances to either side.

Bonus points if the third choice makes Phantasms really difficult to kill.

Carighan.6758:

Plus, if anything make them mutually exclusive by pushing them onto the same choice but in a much stronger setup.

Unfortunately, that’s rather unrealistic without making specific traitlines mandatory. You’d need at least 3 traits per traitline with a comparable effect / purpose otherwise. However, I do believe that at least 1 trait per traitline could work.

Actually, we do already have enough Illusion related traits which are powerful enough or can be tweaked to fulfill this purpose. They’d just have to be spread evenly with keeping the respective purpose and theme of a traitline in mind.

• Illusionsists Celerity
• (Master of Misdirection)
• Persistence of Memory
• Illusionary Reversion
• Chronophantasma
• Mental Defense
• Deceptive Evasion

Honorable Mention

• Persisting Images
• Protected Phantasms

Now, reallocating those traits would take some more work than just moving them to another traitline. Some traits might have to be merged, others might have to be moved. Talking about this in detail might not help at this point. But I’ll try to make a short list how it could look like if those traits were redistributed with the respective themes in mind.

Domination

• IR moved to GM. Might have to be buffed again.
• Mental Anguish could be merged with IR or MA nerfed and reallocated to Adept. Rending Shatters would have to be removed or merged with a different trait. However, I do have the sneaking suspicion nobody would actually miss it.

Duelling

• Already got Deceptive Evasion
• DE probably needs an added bonus to the evade since Endurance regeneration has been reduced so harshly. I can’t actually believe I’m saying this…

Chaos

• Move Mental Defense to the Master tier. Chaos is our defensive traitline after all.
• Remove Chaotic Transference to make space.
• Alternative: Introduce new trait. (e.g. Illusion-centered Chaotic Dampening)
• Consider reworking Illusionary Defense to be actually useful. That trait…. *cringe

Inspiration

• Unnerf and move Persistence of Memory to the GM tier. Maybe add new bonus.
• Make Illusionary Inspiration trigger on heal instead of casting a phantasm.
• Consider merging Persisting Images and Protected Phantasms or adding Persisting Images to Persistence of Memory.

Illusions

• Illusions should be fine with IC and MoM
• Since we’re at it: Rework Compounding Power.

Chronomancy

• Chronomancy should be fine with Alacrity and Chronophantasma.
• Chronomancy would need a new trait to replace IR. StM could be moved to the Master tier to have one shatter related trait per tier. The new GM trait would be non-shatter-non-phantasm related.

I’m not saying that this set up would make all trait lines equally powerful or easy to use when it comes to enhancing our class mechanic and spreading resource generation across all lines. But it would be a start. We would have alternatives in each trait line if we needed them. And they won’t always be the best choice. E.g. in interrupt and lockdown builds, boon support builds or Mantra or Glamour builds.

Yes, these changes take work (and some balls, maybe). But it’s not rocket science.

Food for thought: What if all those traits were minors like IC and MoM in Illusions?

Xaylin.1860:

Unfortunately, that’s rather unrealistic without making specific traitlines mandatory. You’d need at least 3 traits per traitline with a comparable effect / purpose otherwise. However, I do believe that at least 1 trait per traitline could work.

Hrm, that brings up another interesting overall idea for class setup.

If each class had a designed 3 playstyles, then each traitline could have one choice per triplet per playstyle, with the traitlines varying by style and theme more than by effect.

That is to say, the shatter traits in Inspiration are on the buffing/healing side, the ones in Domination are about debuffing, the ones in Dueling about damage, etc. But all have shatter traits, pick any combination of 3×3. Downside, the triplets themselves would be somewhat auto-picks, you’d effectively just select “I want to play a shatter spec” → ok, pick all #1 picks in your selected 3 lines.

Chaotic Dampening actually works moderately well with Trident. If you utilize Chronophantasma or iDefender + iDisenchanter utilities (to allow usage of Seize the Moment), you can constantly do 2-3 illusion shatters to maintain high Might (Bountiful Disillusionment + Shattered Strength). Since each shatter also gives you Alacrity (and potentially Quickness), and you have 5s of Chaos Armor on a 9.5s cooldown (with Illusion). The Chaos Armor, paired with Alacrity, drop the cooldown ridiculously fast making it near 100% uptime (I can’t do the exact math because I don’t have the exact numbers on Chaotic Dampening reduction for Trident. Also, my test was not using favorable utilities/trait, but I had at most 1s downtime on Chaos Armor).

Of course, this is also water combat which has gotten the same amount of love as Bubbles…