Guild Wars 2

Ryuujin.8236:

Maybe it’s time to try out warrior :p – or… any class for that matter I’ve always got bored before getting any alt over 40

Alternatively, we have other weapons.

Frankly, I’m a confusion based shatter spec (staff, scep, torch) and feel more powerful than I did a few months back.

I think there are also other video’s of players that don’t crutch on the GS.

PvE = Platewearer vs Everything

I’m so glad I decided to roll another class a few patch ago when I felt that it was just going to get worse for us. Now I’m almost always playing on my guardian and rarely touch my mesmer anymore. I had even started to gather the TA tokens with my guardian to get the set/GS for my mesmer in the hope that things would get better. It’s sad because I find this class really interesting in its gameplay but all these “features” are ridiculous now and not worth spending my time for this character anymore. I have 4 maxed crafting professions on my mesmer so at least I can still use that.

Let the harmony of our agony rise up like a requiem and bring us holy sanctification!

alanis.6094:

I think there are also other video’s of players that don’t crutch on the GS.

Who said anything about GS. I prefer to run sword/focus/staff, shatter/melee in PvE. But it’s still frustrating grouping enemies up, dropping my warden only for my warden to sit there sucking it’s thumb while it gets ripped apart and the nearby archers pepper me with arrows instead of hacking my foes up in a flurry of arrow deflection and pain.

Ryuujin.8236:

alanis.6094:

I think there are also other video’s of players that don’t crutch on the GS.

Who said anything about GS. I prefer to run sword/focus/staff, shatter/melee in PvE. But it’s still frustrating grouping enemies up, dropping my warden only for my warden to sit there sucking it’s thumb while it gets ripped apart and the nearby archers pepper me with arrows instead of hacking my foes up in a flurry of arrow deflection and pain.

Your description of events when utilizing iWarden doesn’t match with what I am seeing in my gameplay. I can’t remember the last time I casted a phantasm that died before it fired its ability.

This is working as intended so that enemies can react to the summon? Are you kidding me?

The summon can ALREADY be blocked with blind, dodge/evade, and block.

But now if we manage to successfully summon the phantasm, its simply killed before even getting a chance to attack due to the cartoonishly long delay, or it’ll simply be evaded/dodged because it stands there for so long.

Please tell me this is a joke.

This is WORKING AS INTENDED?

Mere Image.8376:

WvWvW = warrior vs. warrior vs. warrior

I will be thrilled if the devs actually attempt to fix us. The fact that one is actually responding to our concerns on this thread gives me hope that my class will live on! Thank you. But in the meantime, it’s warrior time! Spam 2 ftw and crush all mobs that stand before you while I laugh at fellow Mesmers watching their illusions turn to dust!

this is the way!:D
seriously (i love mesmer..ç.ç)

I actually now run a tank build for dungeons: power, toughness, vitality. I probably should have gone with toughness, vitality and condition damage, but either way I’m unkillable. Stand aside warriors and guardians. 0 damage given, 0 damage taken. Who needs phantasm? Pshh. It’s actually quite fun, minus the lack of damage.

JonPeters.5630:

I’ll take a look at the delay. Was supposed to be .5 seconds. I can check if somehow it got increased.

Jon

0.5 seconds if i understand correct? Thats much more than the 1.0 -2.0 seconds now. Which means it can be considered as a bug?

I have yet to decide if I agree with the outrage over Phantasms or if I think everyone is over reacting.

It’s certainly not the best thing in the world,
But any Mesmer player should have known it was coming.
If you read a trait description that says it gives Fury to your phantasms (A boon with no effect on attack speed), and suddenly your Phantasms attack faster and you DIDN’T think it was a bug, you should pay closer attention to what you read.
It’s been clear from the start that wasn’t how the trait was intended, but it’s how everybody rolled one and it became the standard.

It certainly makes a difference now that phantasms don’t instant-attack when they’re summoned, and I do agree that restricting our phantasms to Line of Sight AND “fixing” the attack bug is a little bit too much.
I would honestly rather they just give us back the ability to cast without Line of Sight and left the delay before attack.
In PvE it took me like 2 seconds to figure out if you cast any other Illusion first (Or get in aggro range myself) before casting a Phantasm, the mobs usually ignore it in favour of what they saw first. I’ve already adapted and it’s not a problem for me anymore in that area.

There is a much larger impact in this in wvw (I don’t sPvP, so I can’t comment on that side), but my phantasm still gets his damage off more often than not, even if I’m standing ontop of a tower and summon it directly in the enemy zerg.

tl;dr: Give us back non-LoS phantasms, keep the delay, I’ll be perfectly satisfied. As others have said, having two chances to negate a Phantasm is too much.
If you’re fighting a Mesmer and you don’t dodge or block when you see them try to launch any attack, you’re not approaching the encounter properly.

What happened to the PvE/PvP rules split? It’s strange to have gone from pointing out GW1 to other MMOs as “how to do it” to begging them to do the same for GW2.

I can appreciate that maybe having phantasms be lazy might be necessary for SPvP, but it feels like it makes PvE unplayable. So far as I’m concerned the instant activation was the saving grace of phantasms, in the first place. Something that appears, pauses, and dies isn’t really worth a skill slot. They’re too fragile to work.

Mere Image.8376:

I actually now run a tank build for dungeons: power, toughness, vitality. I probably should have gone with toughness, vitality and condition damage, but either way I’m unkillable. Stand aside warriors and guardians. 0 damage given, 0 damage taken. Who needs phantasm? Pshh. It’s actually quite fun, minus the lack of damage.

If you actually a tank build then your phant should survive for a long kitten time.

I know my phant survive, long enough for me to keep 3 out at all times.

Even my defender who takes damage from when party members gets hurt. Even that last 10-20 sec and a lot of the time it even last long enough for the cooldown to end.

Because of that I can keep a defender out 80%+ of the time.

Maybe your phant are bug and not getting the boost from your stats.

Rather than fix our class, make it so others are equally hurt by aegis and blinds. The full hundred blades attack should miss as opposed to the first blow. When guardians throw down symbols they should fail, same with necros. AoE for elementalists should not be able to hit targets if they are blind. None of that makes sense, just as the mesmer nerfs don’t. If you get hit by a meteor, in a game or in reality, it doesn’t matter of the caster was blind. That kitten thing is going to smash your face in. If I’m blind, my phantasm can still see you, and it’s a mental projection so it shouldn’t matter anyways. It’s just too much at this point.

EsLafiel.4517:

Mere Image.8376:

I actually now run a tank build for dungeons: power, toughness, vitality. I probably should have gone with toughness, vitality and condition damage, but either way I’m unkillable. Stand aside warriors and guardians. 0 damage given, 0 damage taken. Who needs phantasm? Pshh. It’s actually quite fun, minus the lack of damage.

If you actually a tank build then your phant should survive for a long kitten time.

I know my phant survive, long enough for me to keep 3 out at all times.

Even my defender who takes damage from when party members gets hurt. Even that last 10-20 sec and a lot of the time it even last long enough for the cooldown to end.

Because of that I can keep a defender out 80%+ of the time.

Maybe your phant are bug and not getting the boost from your stats.

It’s not a phantasm based tank build. It focuses on giving myself permanent choas armor (from null field and feedback and chaos storm), and perma protection from my runes (with increased boon duration) and whenever I gain regen. Basically I can take a hit often and am unphased by conditions,, but half the time I have aegis or I’m invincible from blurred frenzy. Also my glamorous blind AoE so I can take on several mobs without taking any damage and by that time boons are up again with increased duration from runes and traits, but this is all off topic.

Sorry

If you fix a bug, not only check that the fix works (even that doesn’t happen as it seems) but also its implications on gameplay. You cannot fix things without rebalancing. All we got with the latest updates have been partially working bugfixes shaping up as nerfs further breaking PvE gameplay without any compensation. Fix one thing, break two others, we already know that philosophy, it’s getting old.

Mesmers: the only class where players/npc’s get two opportunities back to back to avoid or stop an ability/skill.

What mongoloid had that bright idea?

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Let me get this straight, what was once our highest damage ability, and is no longer, had a delay before it struck to give enemies time to react??? Seriously? Have you guys thought this through at all? Every other class has abilities that hit as hard or harder and no one has time to “react” They simply hit their ability hotkey and presto, BIG numbers. If you are going to give people time to react, then make our phantasms have more health, and Please, please, please! make them actually do some damage again. I was getting maybe 3k total damage non crit before the patch but it was RELIABLE, and i never saw a wait, id hit 3 and it would be twirling immediately.

Ill give you credit, the LOS bug was OP, i would run around object zerker kiting people and it was really unfair, is this some sort of Karma payback going on? Judging by the comments on these forums you guys have lost a lot of mesmers. I ask to join PVE groups and get booted because they want to bring in another class because they need more DPS.

Give us a break, and please hurry

Moderator edit: removed CoC infraction

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

I am a Mesmer but I am trying to be objective about this.

1) Phantasms don’t feel ‘powerful’. They feel like an unreliable externalization of damage for the sake of our special mechanic.

2) Do you really need to make our mechanic even more unreliable by increasing the odds that the Phantasm will die without even having a chance to attack? The initial summon is already avoidable via normal means (LoS, Blind, etc), as is the actual Phantasm’s attack. If you’re going to make our Phantasm skills redundantly subject to avoidance then is it really necessary to code in a further limitation?

You made Illusions our profession mechanic resource, then made Illusions ephmeral and unreliable. Those two just don’t mesh. Why do you think Mesmers find it such a necessity to stack 40% Illusion CDR? It’s a band-aid for our unreliable mechanic that takes up at least 40% of our weapon skills.

On another note, this increased delay is probably due to your Phantasmal Fury fix. Anyone who reads these forums in passing should know that players frequently report their Illusions suddenly having a delay, the workaround to that delay was Phantasmal Fury, which somehow caused the Phantasm to attack immediately rather than waiting.

Edit: I see you figured this out in the other thread and even reduced the delay. So that’s good news. However, I still think two chances to avoid our Phantasms is a bit much. The ‘intent’ of that change seemed to be to keep us from summoning on enemies we couldn’t hit with a normal skill, which is fair. But the result is subjecting 40% of our weapon skills to needing to hit twice.

WTB more Anet Moderation of kiddies.

Thank you for looking into these concerns/bugs and making efforts to fix them! (WTB some fixes for my Necro as well!)

Vendris.4201:

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

First off: thank you for giving an intended date on the fix for beserker.

Second off: your statement that the delay is there to give enemies a time to react to the summon makes 0 sense. An enemy can react to the summon of a phantasm by interrupting you, blinding you, stealthing, stepping our of range, or dodging you – thus denying the summon from being summoned and putting the skill on cooldown.

Do a comparison between the opening attack of a phantasm, and some of the other spike damage skills in the game. Then please show us some concrete reasons as to why the opening attack of a phantasm is considered so powerful that an enemy should have two chances to completely negate the damage – once by denying the summons at all, and second by being able to kill it or dodge it after it’s summoned and before it does any damage.

I’m going to pick on thieves a little – where is my chance to react to a thief backstabbing me out of stealth? It does far more damage than my phantasms, and I have no chance to deny the attack.

^ quoted for truth.

yes thank you mr peters but umm, hi quick question maybe im missing something…. when a thief in hide decides to deal dmg to me without appearing first OR when a theif decides to use basalisk venom on my while in hide then proceed to backstab combo, uh where is my 3 times to evade tht combo? i mean i say 3 times since that does 3x+ more dmg than our “powerful” phantasms……
I try to make sense out of every patch change to Mesmer but i come up short every time…..it almost feels like you guys don’t even play these classes to see what kind of harm you cause.

Man, let’s be a bit nicer guys. More flies with honey and all that.

Mr. Peters,

I recognize that the delay was removed due to a bug and in your view we should have a delay. However, you state the delay is half a second? It’s at least three seconds. Ontop of this the phantom will attack where the person was. This isn’t much more different then some one moving from a red ring, but it’s annoying and not obviously how it “should” be to either the caster or the defender.

Ontop of this, with the obstruction, blindness, dodge, block, etc etc etc, our phantoms are in sad shape. If you get them out they then sit around for three seconds and can either be killed or cced into submission. Not at all worth it for a long cool down.

I’ve been trying to find a clone only build as those are reliable, not as long a cool down normally, and I can shatter them for effects just like phantasm. I shouldn’t be wanting this. I should want the Phantasm out doing their thing at least once, but because they are blocked by almost everything and most clones aren’t they become an extremely unreliable tool I wish to avoid.

Please take a close look at this, as others have indicated, you gave people double the ways to avoid phantasm before this fix. With the delay in there, do they still need double the ways? Could you comment on this please? I don’t know what the design view is and would like to know it.

I’ve played broken classes elsewhere and have waited out having my class be awesome. I’m not giving up Mesmer, but it’s clearly not working how we the players thought it should. I don’t know how you the designers intended it. Of course, I could probably say that for nearly every class.

dev’s reply in another thread.

JonPeters.5630:

Ok so its sounds like you could counter the summon delay by having a subset of traits. So we fixed a bug that lets all those triats work together but that also makes them not able to exploit the delay anymore. Since it seems like they were working and mostly balanced without the delay I am going to go ahead and reduce the delay on this stuff to .25 seconds. I just tested it at 0 seconds and that breaks some other things so I think .25 is the best compromise.

Sabyne.6329:

I’m so glad I decided to roll another class a few patch ago when I felt that it was just going to get worse for us. Now I’m almost always playing on my guardian and rarely touch my mesmer anymore. I had even started to gather the TA tokens with my guardian to get the set/GS for my mesmer in the hope that things would get better. It’s sad because I find this class really interesting in its gameplay but all these “features” are ridiculous now and not worth spending my time for this character anymore. I have 4 maxed crafting professions on my mesmer so at least I can still use that.

Same situation here. Probably 3 or so patches ago I decided to change my main to my guardian instead while I waited for Mesmer to get some bug fixes and for the devs to figure out what they want to do with the class. Playing my Mesmer as patches kept coming was destroying my progression, I’d grow some levels and get a little stronger then a patch would nerf my PvE capabilities noticeably enough that I felt weaker at higher levels. I was considering trying again since the phantasm buffs are now fixed, but its seems despite that nice fix, things have still gotten worse rather than better. So I think I’ll just keep watching the patch notes and waiting for now.

mavet.3047:

A “dev” not knowing where the issue is coming from – wow not THAT is a shocker ROFLMMFAO!!!

Why don’t you actually do something useful and fix the crap you fked up like world loot drops??? I find it odd that you can “find a solution” in 72 hours if there is the potential of a exploit but yet takes you weeks to fix the debacles you create. But what do I know? I just have a Masters in IT so most of the bllsht that you’re spurting is just that – bllsht…

I work as a software QA. I assure you that it’s insanely hard to track down some of these problems. He’s made it his goal to get it in by the 14th. It means it’s something he’s dedicating time to.

The problem here is even if you know it’s flawed, you might not know where in the code the flaw is being applied and figuring that out can take weeks or more. He’s asking us for what we saw before and after in hopes that something leads him to the right area to look.

Honestly, this is standard. Every software company will tell you this is how it goes. There are just certain bugs that you go “Yeah that’s a bug, but kitten all, I don’t know where in the code it’s hiding.”

Once they find the spot then he can start fixing it. Screaming at him for admitting he needs help, asking the experts for help, and giving us a pledge to get it fixed is not helpful for any one.

JonPeters.5630:

I’ll take a look at the delay. Was supposed to be .5 seconds. I can check if somehow it got increased.

Jon

I think that there needs to be a balance review of the imposed delay on phantasm actions post summoning, regardless of how long, now that LoS, Blind, Dodge, Evade, and Block affect these skills. If phantasms are considered a targeted weapon skill, akin to a damage-over-time (albeit with additional burst capabilities inherent to the profession), I question the validity of offering the target both a way to negate the skill outright as well as additional time to react… this seems to be redundant and overly penalize a core mechanic of the profession?

This delay is really killing my enjoyment.
Now, from the moment you want to do an action to the moment it does the effect, there is:
1. Character animation
2. Illusion idle delay
3. Illusion animation

This is a lot longer than the travel time of a projectile or a simple melee attack from other classes. The time it takes for a cripple or a root (1h sword “3”), is crazy. Add to that the many conditions/bugs that can make it fail and it seems terribly wrong.

I love the mesmer because it’s a very active and fast paced class, please don’t add all these delays and things slowing down the whole gameplay.

Now its out. This ‘bug’ wasn´t a bug, its intended. So what i got now from my mesmer is a wrack in damage and game-play.

And i lost completely faith in A-net since this. The answer is giving by JonPeters in this Thread also gives me a feeling like we have been ignored for the problem that´s coming out with this ‘only one second or .5 seconds of delay’ that is intended.

And that problem is:
The Phantasms dies now faster before they even start attacking = decreasing the damage output of the mesmer once again and makes him a wheelchair class. And by the way, there is no statements to the high damage output of other classes. Is it fair to run arah in a random group with other classes, knowing to be a millstone around their neck all the time?

Robin Hood.8123:

Is it fair to run arah in a random group with other classes, knowing to be a millstone around their neck all the time?

I wouldn’t go that far, mesmer is still VERY strong in PvE, may it be survivability, support or damage.

JonPeters.5630:

Berserker not doing the correct damage is known issue. We don’t know where this issue is coming from but I intend to solve it by the next build. 12/14/12

I know that seems a long time but it will be set back to viable. If you have good data on the damage it used to do to heavy target dummy vs what it does now that will help me track down the issue.

Thanks,

Jon

That’s all we want to hear. We know you guys are busy as hell (hopefully fixing a lot of bugs ), but a message like this is worth A LOT to us. Just promise is to keep this kind of communication up in the future.

Krag.6210:

Robin Hood.8123:

Is it fair to run arah in a random group with other classes, knowing to be a millstone around their neck all the time?

I wouldn’t go that far, mesmer is still VERY strong in PvE, may it be survivability, support or damage.

When my phantasm dies, my damage output gets down. I am not playing the mesmer only because of the support. And by the way, there are more powerful supporter on the run as the mesmer is. So, don´t tell me the mesmer is still strong and those things. I am ready to quit this game once and for all. I love the mesmer and don´t wanna play another class only cause A-net is destroying the class with each new patch.

Vexrm.6134:

mavet.3047:

A “dev” not knowing where the issue is coming from – wow not THAT is a shocker ROFLMMFAO!!!

Why don’t you actually do something useful and fix the crap you fked up like world loot drops??? I find it odd that you can “find a solution” in 72 hours if there is the potential of a exploit but yet takes you weeks to fix the debacles you create. But what do I know? I just have a Masters in IT so most of the bllsht that you’re spurting is just that – bllsht…

I work as a software QA. I assure you that it’s insanely hard to track down some of these problems. He’s made it his goal to get it in by the 14th. It means it’s something he’s dedicating time to.

The problem here is even if you know it’s flawed, you might not know where in the code the flaw is being applied and figuring that out can take weeks or more. He’s asking us for what we saw before and after in hopes that something leads him to the right area to look.

Honestly, this is standard. Every software company will tell you this is how it goes. There are just certain bugs that you go "Yeah that’s a bug, but kitten all, I don’t know where in the code it’s hiding."

Once they find the spot then he can start fixing it. Screaming at him for admitting he needs help, asking the experts for help, and giving us a pledge to get it fixed is not helpful for any one.

I have a Masters in IT - Security. One of the first things we learn when programming is to FULLY DOCUMENT and COMMENT OUT EVERYTHING. But ppl are lazy and have a tendency to cut corners and not place comments or write sloppy code. So it’s no wonder there are so many bugs. I won’t even go in to the whole concept of PM (Project Management) and the testing phase before bringing a system live. This is something that ANet is lacking on. Granted they may have a beta testing phase but without a PTS or a proper protocol for addressing all of the bugs and other problems, they might as well be dead in the water and who suffers? We do...

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

As I though, however, the balance reason argument was yet unknown and seems to contradict the 15/11 patch’s effect.

If the delay is intended to counter the recently summoned illusion, does that mean the change on the illusion not summoning upon a blocking/aegis, dodging or invulnerable target or while being blind was unintentionnally place to fix the problem regarding the out of line-of-sight summoning issue and is meant to be fixed in the futur?

I care little for an immediate fix, should it be the case, but I would be very grateful for you to indulge my curiosity on the matter.

Thank you for your time and pleasant day to you.

JonPeters.5630:

I’ll take a look at the delay. Was supposed to be .5 seconds. I can check if somehow it got increased.

Jon

That is very much appreciated, thank you.

Hi GW2 designers,

I reported the delay bug with Phantasms shortly after logging in the first time after the Dec 3 update. To quote a previous poster:

“are you saying this 2 second pause has been there all along and I didn’t notice in the last 1,200 hours?”

I won’t go as far as to say it’s a 2 second pause, but as for the rest… Amen. Are you telling me I just didn’t notice the delay for the past three months on my exclusive character? I just happened to notice it immediately after the Dec 3 update and then checked the forums to find others reporting the same problem?

Very disappointing to see an undocumented nerf go into a patch update like this.

I can’t overstate how much damage you’ve done to the Mesmer with this nerf – this coming from someone who’s been playing a Mesmer exclusively since 2005. Someone suggested playing a warrior. Sorry, I don’t do warriors. Maybe it’s time to head back to D3.

The thing is, the client never really wants to pay the time for documentation or unit tests.
As a result, few developers ever have the “luxury” of doing it.

Vexrm.6134:

I work as a software QA. I assure you that it’s insanely hard to track down some of these problems. He’s made it his goal to get it in by the 14th. It means it’s something he’s dedicating time to.

To relate, I’ve just been nearly 50% late on something which was supposed to go live yesterday (fixed it today near noon), using 10 days instead of 7 for analysis + implementation + testing + mooost of the documentation.

And I’ve done some hours on the weekend, too.

Finding anything (or changing anything) in a sufficiently large piece of software is a mind-boggling nightmare, on the best of days.

Sword #3 is not the only skill that is only reduced by 20% instead of 40%. Sword #4 too.

As for iWarden, yes, it hits 12 times.

Carighan.6758:

The thing is, the client never really wants to pay the time for documentation or unit tests.
As a result, few developers ever have the “luxury” of doing it.

Vexrm.6134:

I work as a software QA. I assure you that it’s insanely hard to track down some of these problems. He’s made it his goal to get it in by the 14th. It means it’s something he’s dedicating time to.

To relate, I’ve just been nearly 50% late on something which was supposed to go live yesterday (fixed it today near noon), using 10 days instead of 7 for analysis + implementation + testing + mooost of the documentation.

And I’ve done some hours on the weekend, too.

Finding anything (or changing anything) in a sufficiently large piece of software is a mind-boggling nightmare, on the best of days.

Amen. Sounds like we’ve both been on the other side where customers are (probably rightly) demanding the fix now, but the fix isn’t ready, tested, or clean. I try to remember how it goes for me when I’m the hold up for the customer when I come to these forums to complain about fixes.

Vexrm.6134:

Carighan.6758:

The thing is, the client never really wants to pay the time for documentation or unit tests.
As a result, few developers ever have the “luxury” of doing it.

Vexrm.6134:

I work as a software QA. I assure you that it’s insanely hard to track down some of these problems. He’s made it his goal to get it in by the 14th. It means it’s something he’s dedicating time to.

To relate, I’ve just been nearly 50% late on something which was supposed to go live yesterday (fixed it today near noon), using 10 days instead of 7 for analysis + implementation + testing + mooost of the documentation.

And I’ve done some hours on the weekend, too.

Finding anything (or changing anything) in a sufficiently large piece of software is a mind-boggling nightmare, on the best of days.

Amen. Sounds like we’ve both been on the other side where customers are (probably rightly) demanding the fix now, but the fix isn’t ready, tested, or clean. I try to remember how it goes for me when I’m the hold up for the customer when I come to these forums to complain about fixes.

Im on the same side as you guys too, and if i put through a fix on my network that breaks other things, i roll it back. Then you would look for the issues before re applying…

alanis.6094:

Ryuujin.8236:

Maybe it’s time to try out warrior :p – or… any class for that matter I’ve always got bored before getting any alt over 40

Alternatively, we have other weapons.

Frankly, I’m a confusion based shatter spec (staff, scep, torch) and feel more powerful than I did a few months back.

I think there are also other video’s of players that don’t crutch on the GS.

Now I’m going to quote you for truth. Seriously, I always had people telling me go with GS, or with sword/X; I roll with Scepter/torch and staff just like you, full gear of runes pumping me with condition damage, etc.

My confusion damage is incredible. I was playing with a guardian who expressed surprise once I got my shatter (with All Shatters Inflict Confusion), phantasmal mage (confusion + retaliation), the scepter’s #3 skill, more retaliation from the confusing cry trait, etc.

The enemy attacked my guardian friend and just melted… and he was shocked!

Maybe GS needed nerfing, maybe it went too far, but frankly, I’m not having any problems whatsoever with my damage output using other choices.

My problems are of a different nature. In WVWVW its far too easy to identify me through my clones (one shot AOE all the clones at once, simply toggle to me looking for the buffs on me that aren’t on my clones, or heck, just watching how I move vs the others – if I actually want to “confuse” my enemy with which one is me, I have to stop moving, although I DID find a way to do it and keep at least a chance of not being noticed).

The other is that in WVWVW the players often run in zergs, and the illusions don’t have a hope of surviving with all the AOEs going off everywhere.

And don’t get me started on trying to duel a freakin thief, sigh….

So the class isn’t damaged… GS maybe, but not the entire class.

As it is, though, I may be respeccing to take advantage of “when clone/illusion dies”: effects….

PS – I’m not saying GS is fine as is; it may well need fixing. I’m just saying that this one thing doesn’t make the mesmer broken. I’ve been playing Mesmer since day 1, and enjoying the hell out of it.

There are other issues that stand out, and it does make me feel a bit substandard at times…. but not broken or unplayable, and my confusion damage output is just hellacious.

Morfedel.4165:

alanis.6094:

Ryuujin.8236:

Maybe it’s time to try out warrior :p – or… any class for that matter I’ve always got bored before getting any alt over 40

Alternatively, we have other weapons.

Frankly, I’m a confusion based shatter spec (staff, scep, torch) and feel more powerful than I did a few months back.

I think there are also other video’s of players that don’t crutch on the GS.

Now I’m going to quote you for truth. Seriously, I always had people telling me go with GS, or with sword/X; I roll with Scepter/torch and staff just like you, full gear of runes pumping me with condition damage, etc.

My confusion damage is incredible. I was playing with a guardian who expressed surprise once I got my shatter (with All Shatters Inflict Confusion), phantasmal mage (confusion + retaliation), the scepter’s #3 skill, more retaliation from the confusing cry trait, etc.

The enemy attacked my guardian friend and just melted… and he was shocked!

Maybe GS needed nerfing, maybe it went too far, but frankly, I’m not having any problems whatsoever with my damage output using other choices.

My problems are of a different nature. In WVWVW its far too easy to identify me through my clones (one shot AOE all the clones at once, simply toggle to me looking for the buffs on me that aren’t on my clones, or heck, just watching how I move vs the others – if I actually want to “confuse” my enemy with which one is me, I have to stop moving, although I DID find a way to do it and keep at least a chance of not being noticed).

The other is that in WVWVW the players often run in zergs, and the illusions don’t have a hope of surviving with all the AOEs going off everywhere.

And don’t get me started on trying to duel a freakin thief, sigh….

So the class isn’t damaged… GS maybe, but not the entire class.

As it is, though, I may be respeccing to take advantage of “when clone/illusion dies”: effects….

PS – I’m not saying GS is fine as is; it may well need fixing. I’m just saying that this one thing doesn’t make the mesmer broken. I’ve been playing Mesmer since day 1, and enjoying the hell out of it.

There are other issues that stand out, and it does make me feel a bit substandard at times…. but not broken or unplayable, and my confusion damage output is just hellacious.

Its just the izerker that needs fixing. The biggest issue is that phantasm is the bread and butter of GS dps, the rest of the abilities are more functional and the auto is Spatial Surge which is relatively low DPS compared to other classes/weapon auto, especially as it is nothing but damage (no other effects) and also does damage depending on distance, which can be hard to pull off in a lot of instances.

I wouldnt call GS a crutch like the poster you are quoting states. Its more of a burst spec or pure big hit spec, its not condition heavy or boon heavy so very reliant on numbers. A lot of people, myself included always go for the big number spec, even if its not the best. Now i wouldnt mind whether its best or not, but if the izerker would work as intended, id be happy. Thats all

tqhx.2190:

I wouldnt call GS a crutch like the poster you are quoting states. Its more of a burst spec or pure big hit spec, its not condition heavy or boon heavy so very reliant on numbers. A lot of people, myself included always go for the big number spec, even if its not the best. Now i wouldnt mind whether its best or not, but if the izerker would work as intended, id be happy. Thats all

While you might have been one that ‘has been here since the start’, I call GS a crutch because it is what every random re-roll player chooses after he got killed or watched a video of a glass-cannon Mesmer rolling this weapon.

Frankly, iBerserker was always too powerful, IMHO, especially one a glass-cannon build. It did silly AoE damage on a short cooldown, and used to cast despite LOS and blind issues. The bug fixes to this phantasm were a good start. The current damage output is, however, too much — which is part of the reason you see the FOTM re-rollers whining and re-rolling, once again.

I’ll be happy to use another weapon. Let me just take all my work towards sunrise and convert it…. oh wait. I can’t. >.<
Not to mention those that already have their GS legendary.

alanis.6094:

tqhx.2190:

I wouldnt call GS a crutch like the poster you are quoting states. Its more of a burst spec or pure big hit spec, its not condition heavy or boon heavy so very reliant on numbers. A lot of people, myself included always go for the big number spec, even if its not the best. Now i wouldnt mind whether its best or not, but if the izerker would work as intended, id be happy. Thats all

While you might have been one that ‘has been here since the start’, I call GS a crutch because it is what every random re-roll player chooses after he got killed or watched a video of a glass-cannon Mesmer rolling this weapon.

Frankly, iBerserker was always too powerful, IMHO, especially one a glass-cannon build. It did silly AoE damage on a short cooldown, and used to cast despite LOS and blind issues. The bug fixes to this phantasm were a good start. The current damage output is, however, too much — which is part of the reason you see the FOTM re-rollers whining and re-rolling, once again.

How is the current damage too much? Do you just mean it does too much AOE damage? Because as far as single target goes it is far from the highest hitting ability in the game, and the CD isnt shorter in all cases. But thank you, yes, i have been playing GS since release.

I also still dont get the “crutch” thing when you say someone got rolled. I have to alt a staff just so i dont get rolled, the GS doesnt offer a lot of protection. Otherwise my offset would be sword/pistol

SteepledHat.1345:

I’ll be happy to use another weapon. Let me just take all my work towards sunrise and convert it…. oh wait. I can’t. >.<
Not to mention those that already have their GS legendary.

Legendary and exotics have the same stats. You are certainly able to get the same power out of a different weapon until iZerker gets fixed. You might also learn a bit more about the profession in the process of trying other things out.

tqhx.2190:

alanis.6094:

tqhx.2190:

I wouldnt call GS a crutch like the poster you are quoting states. Its more of a burst spec or pure big hit spec, its not condition heavy or boon heavy so very reliant on numbers. A lot of people, myself included always go for the big number spec, even if its not the best. Now i wouldnt mind whether its best or not, but if the izerker would work as intended, id be happy. Thats all

While you might have been one that ‘has been here since the start’, I call GS a crutch because it is what every random re-roll player chooses after he got killed or watched a video of a glass-cannon Mesmer rolling this weapon.

Frankly, iBerserker was always too powerful, IMHO, especially one a glass-cannon build. It did silly AoE damage on a short cooldown, and used to cast despite LOS and blind issues. The bug fixes to this phantasm were a good start. The current damage output is, however, too much — which is part of the reason you see the FOTM re-rollers whining and re-rolling, once again.

How is the current damage too much? Do you just mean it does too much AOE damage? Because as far as single target goes it is far from the highest hitting ability in the game, and the CD isnt shorter in all cases. But thank you, yes, i have been playing GS since release.

Well ‘currently’ its damage isn’t too much — its obviously broken a bit. The previous damage (i.e. 6 or so weeks ago) was, IMHO, much too high for a direct-damage 1200 range AoE, which also is a combo finisher. The single-target damage was actually still rather high for a 1200 range ability on a short cooldown.

I think the main problem right now is that only condition/shatter builds are really viable for us. Phantasms are just not worth the effort now, they spawn, stand around, die before they get off an attack or manage to attack and just don’t do the kind of damage they should be!

When it comes to wvw…
Any other class spec’ed to glass cannon can get some serious burst off really quickly, right now full glass cannon Mesmer’s have no burst at all, before the patch on the 15th of last month I could hit 7k crits with izerker, after the patch I was hitting maybe 2-4k tops, now I’m lucky if I’m hitting 1-2k with it. I’ve already had to retrait to more of a shatter spec build but right now its looking like I’m going to have to rework all of my gear to a condition build! Warden pretty much dies every time before its done anything, other phant’s just aren’t attacking quick enough for it to be considered a good use of a skill!

We shouldn’t be having to cast a Phantasm and then running away in hope’s that it does some damage before we get stomped into the ground, but that’s exactly what it feels like at the moment, it’s like putting 1 bullet into a 6 barrel gun and playing Russian roulette, you fire and just hope something going to happen!
Phantasms don’t do any more damage than other classes high burst skills, why are we the only ones who are treated this way, they don’t get delays that make it easier to dodge their skills!

Now this is where people jump in and start throwing around stuff like “X build still works or Y build works”… why should we have to re-do our whole character to a few specific builds because we’ve been nerfed to the point where we dont have access to more than 1-2 builds/wep sets. The game should be balanced enough that ALL builds should be viable and have potential, I should have to change everything because of nerfs every patch!

It comes down to balance between classes, at what point do Mesmers become auto attackers because Phantasm’s are just unusable and if we do have to turn to auto attacking, why bother being a Mesmer at all, theres’ plenty of other classes out damaging us with auto attacks.

We have gone from the most unique class in the entire game to one trick wonders, every Mesmer is going to have to be a shatter/cond mes now and it just shouldn’t be like that.

I think it’s time Anet gave up this whole “its not a pet its an illusion” type thing and just let us summon them like Ranger/necro/thief pets, with a set HP and skill set that attack anything we attack and die after they take X amount of damage. We rely on clones/phant’s for far too much right now and they keep becoming less usuable with each patch.

AkiraZero.8514:

I think it’s time Anet gave up this whole “its not a pet its an illusion” type thing and just let us summon them like Ranger/necro/thief pets, with a set HP and skill set that attack anything we attack and die after they take X amount of damage. We rely on clones/phant’s for far too much right now and they keep becoming less usuable with each patch.

Making Phantasms to be similar to Necro minions would be an interesting case study to see how quickly this forum blows up crying about needing to re-roll.

My other 80 is a Necro, and I’d be incredibly giddy if minions were made to be 1/3 as strong as Phantasms.

alanis.6094:

AkiraZero.8514:

I think it’s time Anet gave up this whole “its not a pet its an illusion” type thing and just let us summon them like Ranger/necro/thief pets, with a set HP and skill set that attack anything we attack and die after they take X amount of damage. We rely on clones/phant’s for far too much right now and they keep becoming less usuable with each patch.

Making Phantasms to be similar to Necro minions would be an interesting case study to see how quickly this forum blows up crying about needing to re-roll.

My other 80 is a Necro, and I’d be incredibly giddy if minions were made to be 1/3 as strong as Phantasms.

Difference being that while Phantasms form the core of Mesmer play (even if they are just used for 1 attack → shatter fodder), Necros don’t NEED minions to stay viable. In fact I’ve been hearing from several of my necromancer friends at the start that minions were a subpar utility anyways.

alanis.6094:

tqhx.2190:

alanis.6094:

tqhx.2190:

I wouldnt call GS a crutch like the poster you are quoting states. Its more of a burst spec or pure big hit spec, its not condition heavy or boon heavy so very reliant on numbers. A lot of people, myself included always go for the big number spec, even if its not the best. Now i wouldnt mind whether its best or not, but if the izerker would work as intended, id be happy. Thats all

While you might have been one that ‘has been here since the start’, I call GS a crutch because it is what every random re-roll player chooses after he got killed or watched a video of a glass-cannon Mesmer rolling this weapon.

Frankly, iBerserker was always too powerful, IMHO, especially one a glass-cannon build. It did silly AoE damage on a short cooldown, and used to cast despite LOS and blind issues. The bug fixes to this phantasm were a good start. The current damage output is, however, too much — which is part of the reason you see the FOTM re-rollers whining and re-rolling, once again.

How is the current damage too much? Do you just mean it does too much AOE damage? Because as far as single target goes it is far from the highest hitting ability in the game, and the CD isnt shorter in all cases. But thank you, yes, i have been playing GS since release.

Well ‘currently’ its damage isn’t too much — its obviously broken a bit. The previous damage (i.e. 6 or so weeks ago) was, IMHO, much too high for a direct-damage 1200 range AoE, which also is a combo finisher. The single-target damage was actually still rather high for a 1200 range ability on a short cooldown.

I didnt think single target was that high considering ive seen those numbers and higher from other class abilities. The only thing that does any considerable damage is our shatters, which are a little difficult to pull off in PVP with the recent nerfings, but i dont mind having to up my skill in that aspect.

Btw im from TB, think our guilds may be friendly, we may see each other around in game!