Guild Wars 2

I started another thread that got derailed by someone, and I wasn’t super clear on my thoughts, so I want to get a poll of what the community feels about the announced changes. There is a lot of flaming and irrational posting going on, so I thought it would be cool to just get simple survey of a question I’m really interested in. Here is the question:

QUESTION: Are the announced changes from the recent Skill Bar segment
A) good
B) bad
C) neutral
for the long term health of the mesmer class?

I interpret “health” as diversity of builds, strength in various areas of the game, high skill ceiling allowing for creative and engaging play styles, things like that. But interpret it however you want.

iLeap should be like before the ‘bug fix’

scepter auto torment applying is terribad and promotes an alrdy mostly mindless build

only those changes bother me, for wvw zerging ppl might use triumphant distortion now

altho, overall they were good changes , but it felt like the balance team was lazy, just dmg and radius boost for gs3, there were way more ideas like making it blast finisher etc

so i would say its overall neutral

Wyrden.4713:

iLeap should be like before the ‘bug fix’

scepter auto torment applying is terribad and promotes an alrdy mostly mindless build

only those changes bother me, for wvw zerging ppl might use triumphant distortion now

altho, overall they were good changes , but it felt like the balance team was lazy, just dmg and radius boost for gs3, there were way more ideas like making it blast finisher etc

so i would say its overall neutral

Honestly, I think that the iLeap change was overall good for the game in the long run. Right now, we’re still seeing red about the loss of the stunbreak, but it’s not too too bad (think Phase Retreat stunbreak). The change is just to fix the nerf which ended up going overboard because of some severe consequences that were overlooked on the “simple bugfix”.

The Grandmaster changes are bad. It shows how little ANet knows about how and why Mesmers are bad/GM are unusable. TD has no uses as a GM and, even with the buff, does not justify 6 points into Dueling, although most builds end up going 4 points in, the extra 2 points are not worth the bonus effect, even with the buff.

MtD is just a joke. We don’t need duration on it, we need intensity through damage or stacks. As it stands, there’s no point in it being a Grandmaster, just like TD.

BD and DS have no purpose. DS sucks because Healing Power has no scaling and it lasts for no time, which means that, at best, you’re going to see an increase in healing of about 900, assuming you can get off 2 Mantra completions with Harmonious Mantras and are getting Rejuvenation applied off Phantasms. Of course, that would require an instant cast stunbreak that won’t interrupt a mantra being charged, and also standing next to a Phantasm so you can get the Rejuv. BD sucks because… well… why would you shatter for a small boon… and why would you go 6 points in Chaos for a shatter build to get a boon when you shatter?

Mimic… well, I’ve already said a lot about why this isn’t that great/could be better.

Scepter punishes good play and is basically MtD on Auto attacks without any investment. What was wrong with the auto attack was the long aftercast paired with a long cast time. That wasn’t addressed and instead it became an even more brainless weapon.

IE and Warden weren’t shown so I doubt they’re actually fixed until I see it. What is it… #5 on Warden being fixed and #3 on IE being fixed? “Fixed”.

Mantras are nice, but MoP is a PvE/WvW change that still leaves one major problem: Requires Harmonious Mantras to improve readiness of the active for AoE tagging. MoD is kittening great, but… I don’t see where it will be super useful. Even in WvW, it’s hard to give up a utility slot.

GS3, what I got from this was: “lots of good ideas that can be implemented, let’s go with the easy ones that don’t require any work”. Does address some of the issues, but not the root or cast time.

I was disappointed at how these changes don’t address anything. They’re mostly just minor bugfixes that should have been included in the updates leading up to the feature patch.

Heck, the iWarden and IE were “supposed” to be fixed during the last Feature Patch.

I only really think the GS, IE, iWarden, and iLeap are good changes because they’re bugfixes/QoL that don’t address anything. The Mantras are good changes that should be part of the feature patch, but they should be alongside meaningful changes and improvements, not these… small tweaks.

The rest don’t address anything and just bring more problems than anything else. I feel like they’re going to be nerfed within 1 week – 2 months, putting us even further behind than when we started.

These changes won’t make the mesmer class any more enjoyable in PvE.
Build variety is still non-existant.
Leveling and open worldl will still be a chore compared to other classes, tagging is nearly as bad as before.
No swiftness buff.

The changes are neutral in matters of PvE. That’s why I won’t come back to GW2.

Which could probably seen as bad, if ANet wants people to play their game.

So all together, the changes are not enough and therefore bad.

This is the third “fix” to iwarden.
I expect it to shatter on summon dealing damage to mesmer itself.

If really fixed will make mesmers good for fractal like they were before the fixes.

P.S. i expect the fix being a tooltip change: iwarden can’t attack on non perfectly plain floors or against summoned and moving foes.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

These changes won’t make the mesmer class any more enjoyable in PvE.
Build variety is still non-existant.
Leveling and open worldl will still be a chore compared to other classes, tagging is nearly as bad as before.
No swiftness buff.

The changes are neutral in matters of PvE. That’s why I won’t come back to GW2.

Which could probably seen as bad, if ANet wants people to play their game.

So all together, the changes are not enough and therefore bad.

I agree with the lack of build diversity. I like the mesmer class, but I dislike being pressured into slotting all or majority of mantras to squeeze out decent pve dps.

I also dislike being pressured into having a focus equipped at all times to have decent OOC movement speed. I just can’t understand their logic on restricting reliable OOC movement speed to this one option on a mesmer…and this being the only class with such a restriction?!? This is a really bad choice to impose a flavor restriction on.

Overall, the changes they made were positive ones…just in such small increments that it is frustrating and too minor. At this rate, it will be a decade from now that they finally fix half of the issues…and no one will even be playing this at that point. They just need to man up and make some serious attempts at balance versus this snail pace approach. At the very least, that would shake up the class hiearchy and make the game more interesting.

Do I like the changes?
Yep, all except scepter auto. (I even think the nerfs are fine and would go as far as to say I’m ‘happy’ with them).

Are they good for the health of the Mesmer class?
Probably not. People who begin to play Mesmer post patch are going to consider Mesmer something very different from what it is now. Loads of people will be adopting scepter Mesmer as there main and we’re going to get a pretty ugly rep because of it.

Build Diversity?
Neutral. I’ll wait to see how it pans out before forming an opinion.

Mesmers are already crowned the kings of passive gameplay (in my book) and now they just handed us our “golden scepter.”
Going over the changes:
mantra aoes – neutral. The whole mechanics of mantras and the spread of their useful traits. The best you could do is run a cc/support mantra mesmer for wvw.

mimic – neutral. I think mimic was better initially. Lost the of the reflect, block, and shot sucks. This change won’t make me desire it anymore than I did before.

iLeap/IE – good, these fixes are fantastic

Scepter -bad, bad, bad just bad. This is not the buff we were looking for.

PU – bad. Defensive utility diluted with swiftness/might. Way better for condition or might stacking PU but hits power PU by sludging up the defenses.

Clone death traits – bad. If thought about, this is a hit on DE more than anything. Any non-DE build using clones has their effectiveness reduced greatly. Builds using DE will feel less impact and even less if they have energy sigils/vigor. Doesn’t really touch on the problem with clone generation and DE in general….

Imo, this update will increase our ability to…play passively, bad overall… It was funny earlier! The people parading around like this change was championing active gameplay for the mesmer. AA is not active gameplay… That doesn’t change with the scepter buff or fixed IE.

Edit:
As for build diversity, it’s not going to change drastically just some shifting of traits for more condition deeps…

I’d like to point out that Mesmers, like rangers, are already severly limited in our build diversity based just on our class mechanic alone.

CLones + Phantasms

There are really only 2 types of Mesmers at the core and they both use similar if not exact play styles amongst all their sub-types.

Shatter Mesmers are one, you blow up your clones all the time.

Phantasm Mesmers are the Other, where you dont blow up your clones the majority of the time.

Traits and balancing aside, this is what ultimately cripples this professions longevity and build diversity in both the short and long run.

The problem is that Phantasms account for roughly 40% of our sustained dps, meaning unless you’re going for a non-sustained dps burst build (aka Shatter), you’re not going to use your class mechanic.

I like how Warrior holding onto their class mechanic got addressed. However, it only got addressed because it was unnecessarily large amounts of damage bonus being added in place of a damage skill. Since Mesmers don’t have a trait giving us more damage for each shatter skill off cooldown, we won’t be getting that same mechanic addressed.

Basically, what I’m complaining about in this post is the fact that we rely so heavily on our Phantasms for dps that it’s kind of silly that our class mechanic is to get rid of them for a small, small burst.

Now, for a literal representation of how our DPS is without Phantasms (ignoring you, shatter), 100b can easily hit 30,000 damage. Imagine with that exact setup, you instead dealt 18,000 damage because a mob cleaved your banners, effectively dropping your dps. (Shhh, it doesn’t work perfectly, but that’s how weak our attacks are without Phantasms making up the difference).

Esplen.3940:

The problem is that Phantasms account for roughly 40% of our sustained dps, meaning unless you’re going for a non-sustained dps burst build (aka Shatter), you’re not going to use your class mechanic.

I like how Warrior holding onto their class mechanic got addressed. However, it only got addressed because it was unnecessarily large amounts of damage bonus being added in place of a damage skill. Since Mesmers don’t have a trait giving us more damage for each shatter skill off cooldown, we won’t be getting that same mechanic addressed.

Basically, what I’m complaining about in this post is the fact that we rely so heavily on our Phantasms for dps that it’s kind of silly that our class mechanic is to get rid of them for a small, small burst.

Now, for a literal representation of how our DPS is without Phantasms (ignoring you, shatter), 100b can easily hit 30,000 damage. Imagine with that exact setup, you instead dealt 18,000 damage because a mob cleaved your banners, effectively dropping your dps. (Shhh, it doesn’t work perfectly, but that’s how weak our attacks are without Phantasms making up the difference).

I can’t help but agree with this. A class mechanic that is almost unusable by one of the two primary builds of a class is bad. My mesmer is a phantasm build and the only shatter I would ever use is distortion..and that is the last resort if I am about to die. I would much prefer our class mechanic to not revolve around destroying illusions…maybe instead move our phantasm summonings to the class mechanic bar and have shatter’s be available via a different mechanic.

I play Phantasm in PvE (well, more of the flavaflav 6/4/0/04 with tweaks as necessary), and the shatters I use are…

Mind Wrack as a finisher, when I know a mob is going to die, because it’s a significant burst/overall dps increase since it doesn’t hold any flaws when used right at the end of a battle (bar between battle cooldowns, but we’re not spamming it, so no big deal).

Diversion as an interrupt, now I usually have 2 interrupts through weapon skills and if I really need a third, I’ll slot MoDistraction, but Diversion is helpful for clearing Defiance on things like Dredge Fractal final boss fight, where nobody likes helping you clear Defiance and you’re effectively 1 man interrupting (and reducing Defiance) any time the oil misses. Also useful for things like Abomination fights (right before Lupi, not P2 boss) where the Illusions are dead meat, anyways (use this after you have chained all of your interrupts and make sure you press it right before you finish casting your 4th phantasm, followed immediately by sword3 → weapon swap phantasm to not lose dps from Compounding Power).

And obviously Distortion for panic. I actually like using Distortion versus Lupicus Phase 3 (because I suck at one shotting him, I blame it on people shoving him off the wall, qq) to allow me to stay on him while he’s leaping. Simply Distortion and wait for it to start blinking. As soon as it ends (that is, the moment before it ends) cast Blurred Frenzy. As soon as that ends, cast Riposte to prevent the knock-back (follow up with Sword 3 and a Phantasm to maintain Compounding Power).

Not sure this belongs here, but do note that Sword3 is instant cast and can be cast during a Phantasm spawn. I abuse this all the time vs Mai Trinn since I put myself on “Block and Port” duty. Spawn Swordsman vs Mai, as soon as cast starts, tab-target Horrik spawn Leap clone, tab-target back to Mai and proceed to do whatever you were doing. The reason why I spawn the clone on Horrik is so it distracts him (he might cast the cannon push), body blocks the explosive shot (not the one that reduces Mai charges) and survives longer than when chasing Mai (which helps with Signet of the Ether).

Whew, this was longer than I expected and full of tangents.

Tl;dr: Can we get treatment on our Shatters similar to Warriors and Burst Skills? It actually makes sense, if you think about it…

Esplen.3940:

I play Phantasm in PvE (well, more of the flavaflav 6/4/0/04 with tweaks as necessary), and the shatters I use are…

Mind Wrack as a finisher, when I know a mob is going to die, because it’s a significant burst/overall dps increase since it doesn’t hold any flaws when used right at the end of a battle (bar between battle cooldowns, but we’re not spamming it, so no big deal).

Diversion as an interrupt, now I usually have 2 interrupts through weapon skills and if I really need a third, I’ll slot MoDistraction, but Diversion is helpful for clearing Defiance on things like Dredge Fractal final boss fight, where nobody likes helping you clear Defiance and you’re effectively 1 man interrupting (and reducing Defiance) any time the oil misses.

Tl;dr: Can we get treatment on our Shatters similar to Warriors and Burst Skills? It actually makes sense, if you think about it…

I’m not really clear on what you mean by treating shatters similar to warriors burst skills. What I think you are saying is to still have shatters as our class mechanic, but to have illusions increase our dps depending on how many illusions we have active…like adrenaline…just have the shatters as burst/cc/survivability? If so, that works too. I just think it would be a better mechanic to have the phantasms themselves be our class mechanic..not the shatters. I’m saying to decouple phantasms from the actual weapon skills…making all phantasm types available to all mesmers…regardless of what weapons you have equipped. Phantasms provide nice and varied utility (wardens blocking projectiles, mages with confusion, duelists with projectile finishers, swordsmen with leap finishers, berserkers with cripple). Shatters are really situational and play style specific in my opinion. I recently picked my mesmer up again after an extended period on my warrior and another extended period on my guardian, so take what I say with the knowledge that I am definitely not the most experienced at mesmer. I rarely do dungeons…I primarily do fractals (30-50) and I’m currently addicted to dry top rewards.

I also play 6/4/0/0/4. I alternate from sw/sw + sw/foc to sw/sw + gs. I’ve recently given in to ANET’s pressure to slot mantras in order to squeeze out some decent pve dps. I’m pretty unhappy with that as I prefer a mix of utility types (glamors, illusions, and signets), but empowering mantras is just too much of a dps boost to ignore. I think its bad design to pressure players into ignoring all but one utility type and to discourage use of utilities like mantras do. 4% dps penalty every time you use up charges on a mantra + cast time and cool down getting it back. Why would I nerf myself if I don’t absolutely have any other choice?

@ODB, our profession mechanic is shatters and illusions. As such, should we not be intended to use shatters in every fight? Is it their intent to make us use illusions in every fight?

Why, then, do we spawn things that deal a significant portion of our total dps while staying alive while our profession mechanic relies on destroying them?

If you don’t understand that, let me explain it to you: You can only make cakes, but you’re allergic to eggs. If you want to eat a cake, you have to work around the fact that you’re allergic to eggs. Why, then, are you only capable of making cakes?

If you still don’t understand…
Illusions don’t add to our dps. They account for a large portion of our dps.
Burst skills don’t add to Warrior DPS, they’re [supposed to] account for a large portion of their dps. (Bar Eviscerate, since someone will axe me about it.)

However, Warriors get a large damage bonus for not using their profession mechanic when they don’t, in most builds, need to use it to improve dps.

Mesmers, on the other hand, don’t get a large bonus for not using their profession mechanic when they don’t, in most builds, need to use it to improve dps.

In fact, both Mesmer and Warrior profession mechanics can and do hurt DPS outputs by activating them with builds (not all, but many).

In this feature patch, Warriors not using their profession mechanic was addressed by giving them more incentive to use it and by making persist less after a fight.

Mesmers have never had their profession mechanic persist after a fight and, in many builds, have no incentive to use it (bar Mind Wrack final burst, Distortion survival, keeping in mind each F skill reduces your overall DPS in most cases).

Mesmer profession mechanic acts like a Burst skill (funny because I’m comparing Mesmers to Warriors and therefore comparing Shatters to Burst skills, hahhh) in the fact that to use them at all is to provide burst, not sustained dps. There’s a reason why shatter isn’t usable in PvE and that’s because it’s not sustained dps. It’s high burst and moderate recharge as opposed to phantasm which is able to maintain the dps with a, roughly equal, moderate recharge charge.

In many, many builds, there’s no incentive to use our shatters, our illusions don’t persist from fight to fight, even if we stay in combat and traverse from group to group fighting nonstop, and we’re effectively not doing anything.

Warriors get a trait that improves damage for each bar of adrenalin not spent.
Mesmers get a trait that improves damage for each illusion alive.

Warriors profession mechanic attack is burst.
Mesmers profession mechanic attack is shatter.

Warriors do not need to do anything to maintain full adrenalin if they don’t use burst.
Mesmers need to constantly respawn and maintain illusions even if they don’t use shatter.

And we can go into further injustices such as Healing Signet, where Warriors get roughly the same HP/Sec as Signet of the Ether with absolutely no conditionals attached whereas Signet of the Ether requires 3 illusions up and pulses slowly, making it harder to maintain the heals.

The example was not meant to be using Warriors and Mesmers though Burst and Shatter are very similar, profession mechanic-wise. It was meant to say that we have Shatters that aren’t being used because they actively hurt our damage output. That’s not healthy (unless you’re doing shatter burst, may you succeed in your endeavors) for how Mesmer works. We’re harming our damage output to improve our damage output, and the costs don’t outweigh the gains.

Eventually, my point will boil down to (if we want to keep Shatter in the game, which we do) Shatter skills should be select-able because as they are, they are very pidgeonholed in their uses (bless your lovely soul, Distortion, I will love you even if we get to pick our shatters).

Esplen.3940:

@ODB, our profession mechanic is shatters and illusions. As such, should we not be intended to use shatters in every fight? Is it their intent to make us use illusions in every fight?

Why, then, do we spawn things that deal a significant portion of our total dps while staying alive while our profession mechanic relies on destroying them?

If you don’t understand that, let me explain it to you: You can only make cakes, but you’re allergic to eggs. If you want to eat a cake, you have to work around the fact that you’re allergic to eggs. Why, then, are you only capable of making cakes?

If you still don’t understand…
Illusions don’t add to our dps. They account for a large portion of our dps.
Burst skills don’t add to Warrior DPS, they’re [supposed to] account for a large portion of their dps. (Bar Eviscerate, since someone will axe me about it.)

However, Warriors get a large damage bonus for not using their profession mechanic when they don’t, in most builds, need to use it to improve dps.

Mesmers, on the other hand, don’t get a large bonus for not using their profession mechanic when they don’t, in most builds, need to use it to improve dps.

….

Eventually, my point will boil down to (if we want to keep Shatter in the game, which we do) Shatter skills should be select-able because as they are, they are very pidgeonholed in their uses (bless your lovely soul, Distortion, I will love you even if we get to pick our shatters).

Okay, the initial condescending tone withstanding, I’ll bite. I have no lack of understanding how shatters or the mesmer class works. What I was seeking clarity on was your parallel of warrior’s class mechanic versus the mesmer class mechanic…specifically if you were referring to adrenaline or the burst mechanic part of it…versus our shatters. I’ll agree that both illusions and shatters are our class mechanic, since they are both required for the class mechanic to work…despite other classes actually having all components for their class mechanic actually be a part of their class mechanic bar. That being a point of semantics and I have no interest in the semantics. The majority of your post just now pretty much revolves around semantics, as “improving dps” and “dealing a significant portion of dps” equate to the same net effect. I also have no interest in taking this on a tangent about warriors versus mesmers…as that is never a productive discussion and I have no issues with the way another class performs…only suggestions for mesmer improvement. We already perform closely in mechanics in terms of our illusions functioning close enough to adrenaline to boost our damage. I wouldn’t want it to be anymore similar as I enjoy the difference. Neither my initial post, nor the reply were aimed at getting a guide to mesmer, a guide to warrior, nor a criticism of your idea/opinion. Essentially it boiled down to that last paragraph you wrote about shatters being selectable, versus my idea of the phantasms being on that bar as selectable instead.

+1.
Mesmer’s mechanic is the most self-conflicting one. I wish it could be reworked.

ODB.6891:

Okay, the initial condescending tone withstanding, I’ll bite.

I apologize if I sounded condescending, I had no intention and, re-reading my post, do not see it myself. However, since it was not my intent and everyone perceives things differently, I would like to point that I did not mean to do it.

In my first post, I didn’t really talk about Warriors except for a very notable example, with which you agreed. The second post, only the final thing (like the first post) talked about Warriors, again. The third post, however, did talk a significant amount about Warriors, which I will admit was a tangent, but helped me to figure out my point (sorry, my brain is a rollercoaster).

Essentially it boiled down to that last paragraph you wrote about shatters being selectable, versus my idea of the phantasms being on that bar as selectable instead.

Which was my original point, being that

Tl;dr: Can we get treatment on our Shatters similar to Warriors and Burst Skills? It actually makes sense, if you think about it…

Basically, what I’m asking for isn’t to make it a huge dps boost, but make it so that we have incentive to use our Shatters in more than two scenarios instead of just when a mob is about to die or as a panic button.

I suppose being able to pick your Phantasms as our mechanic would work, as well, but then that would kill Shatter builds. Wasn’t there that post earlier that talked about how to improve Mesmers and talked about the selectable Profession mechanics? It got a lot of heat and steam and then died.