Guild Wars 2

I love playing power shatter in PvP, but it is very difficult to play in the current condi meta. It is hard to balance decent damage with enough condi cleanse. It seems as though 95% mes roll with condi builds. It would be nice to have more build variety. Personally I think they need to add more condi cleanse to the power trait lines. If I roll with the inspiration line I can’t break the tank of most classes. Although inspiration provides nice support it is wasted in most pugs.

Inspiration Minor – Remove 2 conditions when you use a heal skill
Inspiration Master(?) – Remove 1 condition when you use a shatter skill
Mantra of Resolve – Remove 2 conditions x 2 usage
Well of eternity – Removes conditions

You have enough access to condition clear via just the inspiration line, you can change your heal to the mantra heal to make more use of the minor condi cleanse ability. If you are facing even more pressure you have another utility skill that cures conditions. That is more than what most classes have on their bar to clear conditions.

xAtri.9378:

Inspiration Minor – Remove 2 conditions when you use a heal skill
Inspiration Master(?) – Remove 1 condition when you use a shatter skill
Mantra of Resolve – Remove 2 conditions x 2 usage
Well of eternity – Removes conditions

You have enough access to condition clear via just the inspiration line, you can change your heal to the mantra heal to make more use of the minor condi cleanse ability. If you are facing even more pressure you have another utility skill that cures conditions. That is more than what most classes have on their bar to clear conditions.

You clearly didn’t even read the title of the thread or even my post at all.

Vague Memory.2817:

xAtri.9378:

Inspiration Minor – Remove 2 conditions when you use a heal skill
Inspiration Master(?) – Remove 1 condition when you use a shatter skill
Mantra of Resolve – Remove 2 conditions x 2 usage
Well of eternity – Removes conditions

You have enough access to condition clear via just the inspiration line, you can change your heal to the mantra heal to make more use of the minor condi cleanse ability. If you are facing even more pressure you have another utility skill that cures conditions. That is more than what most classes have on their bar to clear conditions.

You clearly didn’t even read the title of the thread or even my post at all.

maybe atri has a Vague Memory of what u said.

If you can’t “break the tank” then I’m sorry but you don’t play well enough.
Warriors seem to be the only problem for power mesmers sustain-wise as well as damage wise. Engineers come close too, as well as good dragonhunters.

But anyone else will die with ease. Here, this is the build that I run in PvP:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8elknhy0YjawDNwsGLPHV9geoLK6i1YP2ZBEAHGA-TpRBAB0s/AAXAg4LDMxBBQjjAAFPAAA

I guarantee you that this build will make your life easier.

Swap Signet of Illusions for Portal Entre and Signet of Humility for Gravity Well.

Abelisk.4527:

If you can’t “break the tank” then I’m sorry but you don’t play well enough.
Warriors seem to be the only problem for power mesmers sustain-wise as well as damage wise. Engineers come close too, as well as good dragonhunters.

But anyone else will die with ease. Here, this is the build that I run in PvP:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8elknhy0YjawDNwsGLPHV9geoLK6i1YP2ZBEAHGA-TpRBAB0s/AAXAg4LDMxBBQjjAAFPAAA

I guarantee you that this build will make your life easier.

Swap Signet of Illusions for Portal Entre and Signet of Humility for Gravity Well.

Sorry but maybe we are playing different PvP. I’m talking about ranked and not unranked as your build suggests. I’ve played inspiration for a long time, and there is no way you are breaking a ele, druid, or engi tank with that build unless they don’t know their class. Your dps is too poor to burst them down, I know. All that build will do 1v1 is a stalemate if you both can play well. You’ll both be dancing around for for ages until one of you get bored and dies or another player comes to end it.

That build works for Ranked!

Also what do you expect when facing a bunker? L0L. Of course you should never 1v1 a bunker… If you’re facing a druid/ele in a 1v1 then you already won. A support bunker should never be in a 1v1 scenario, ever. Especially if their team is losing badly and keeps dying.

With the interrupts that you have, you will be dealing serious burst damage with this build. You just have to know how to play it! You know what they say, practice makes perfect =)

The question is: Should we continue to have three redundant, unusable trait lines simply because all the viable build options retain all condition cleansing in the Inspiration line?

If, for example, Mender’s Purity was moved to the Domination, or Dueling lines, then suddenly a ton of build options open up. Power Mesmers could run mantra heal, possibly even with Harmonious Mantras, and not be forced to kitten their damage (inspiration), utility (MoD/portal), or survivability (decoy/blink). At heart this issue is about making viable mesmer builds. Something that we do not have right now. All viable trait synergy is funneled into meta condi chrono. Everything else is suboptimal, and below par on HoT level performance across all classes.

This is not a new problem!

P.S. I thank the enemy mesmers for the free win when I see them running power in Ranked.

the best I could come up with.
maybe if you could still attack while mantras were channeling? some of them would have to be reworked though.

It’s no different than most other specs, frankly.

Condition cleansing needs to be either made substantially more accessible in general, or made more widespread with fewer mass-cleanses while reducing the condition breadth applicability of everyone else.

It’s the main reasoning why the elite specs are so strong; they pretty much all include multiple trait-line’s-worth of utility to reduce these awkward dependencies, but yet the mandated lines are still mandated just because every little extra ounce of utility outweighs something like a cooldown reduction or 10% damage.

Yes to OP. Power Shatter needs more Condi Clear. Duh. This is a well known issue IMO, no sense in even arguing about it.

That is probably not all it will take to bring back Power builds though…

It is even worse in WvW where every second build you run into whilst roaming is a 3k armour bunker rocking full trailblazer/dire.

RIP power mesmer.

Chorazin.4107:

It is even worse in WvW where every second build you run into whilst roaming is a 3k armour bunker rocking full trailblazer/dire.

RIP power mesmer.

I recently got back into WvW to get the gift of battle. As a mes the biggest problem is that an effective zerg build is totally different from a roaming building. Sometimes you can go to from a zerg to solo in an instant. Being caught solo in a zerg build usually results in instant death. Once ANet get their act sorted out and introduce a build saver it will make this much less of an issue.

How broken would it be if shattering cleared condis baseline, and the over all effect was removed from restorative illusion? and why?

Would it honestly be to much for power to have access to that type of removal?

Biggest issue I can see is risk making insp a bad line, or buffing condi spec via blinds plus perhaps Mistrust in Dueling, and access to Chaos. (PU would prob come back, but since we’re justifying things based on conquest I don’t see the problem)

But I’d prefer 3 more options for power than pigeon holed into one sometimes detrimental line. You’d still be dropping decent healing from insp if you’re condi. Also would help core mesmers usability in the current meta.

You can add condi clear to Dueling or Dom, but why risk watering down lines that are already struggling?

Shatters clearing condis baseline with no ICD would be too much. For core mesmer it would be just slightly OP, giving core mesmer the highest inherent access to condi cleanse, and this goes over the top when you run chrono and/or Signet of Illusions.

Power mesmer has more problems than just lack of condi cleanse though, so this wouldn’t be the appropriate changes to mesmer to make power mesmer viable again imo

If you look at other classes power builds they can easily incorporate ample condi cleanses. I would say the only other real problem is lack of access to stability (it gets old getting pull or pushed into traps by DHs), and it’s probably debatable on lack of damage. Mantras could also do with a rework as they are just cumbersome to charge in PvP.

I’m generally more in favor of nerfing other classes than continuing to buff mesmer unnecessarily and promote power creep. Power shatter could use more access to condi clears I agree, but condi clears on shatters is too much to have baseline, and it also buffs condi chrono as well since they would be able to drop Inspiration and take a more offensive traitline instead.

The bigger problems with power mesmer is that other classes can run bunker-ish builds that output more power damage than power mesmer can despite power mesmer having little to no survivability. So its less a problem with power mesmer and more a power with other classes not having to cripple their survivability to deal ok power damage. And again here the better solution is to tune other classes down instead of just straight buffing power mesmer to be on their level.

Well that would be the point of adding more condi cleanse for power shatter so you don’t have to take inspiration and nerf your damage. There is a reason why not many people play power shatter in PvP.

But that’s part of balance, taking more survivability over damage. You shouldn’t have too much of both, and condi cleanse on every shatter is a lot of sustain vs condis. Its too much to be baseline. I do want to see more condi cleanse available to power builds, but condi cleanse on shatters going baseline is not the way to do it.

I think that Ross’s idea of moving menders purity to either domination or dueling is a much better way to give power builds more access to condi cleanse.

I do agree with OriOri, but A-net isn’t going to nerf half the game for the sake of making one playstyle viable. (prob why we had so much power creep.) I’d also prefer that route, but I doubt it will happen and if it does it would be 1 patch every half year slowly working towards that. I’d rather not wait till 2020 for power shatter to be good.

Ross has a pretty good idea too, but I honestly don’t think it’s enough for power, nor would I trust A-net to replace a trait from dom that wasn’t vital.

If there was a way to keep condi only viable or keep it’s max damage while running insp, I don’t think to much would change apart from power getting the love it needs. (Maybe swap Illusionary retribution with Inspiring Distortion?)

Base mesmer would have the most built in condi clense sure, but at this point what difference dose it make other than forcing people into one line on base? Even way back when classic shatter spec’s biggest weakness was condi, and low risk burst, other classes would still have been better team picks outside of portal if this change was made and condi was no longer a staple weakness.

Power mes is such trash (mostly due to the HoT power creep, not condi’s in particular, but whatever) that you could delete mesmer from the game, drop Moa from existence, give portal to Warrior, and nobody would complain. In fact with the exception of a few crazies, 99.9% of the GW2 population would nod their heads happily.

Lmao the self hate is real.

Just throwing it out there, our phantasms are also a problem.

Since so many things can pressure through walls it would be nice if our phantams could be summoned without LoS again. (maybe there would be a little sword love if I can pre-summon it while on Henge or something.)

Or at least not be designed like “3/4 – 1s cast”→“summon animaion”→ “attack” .
For power’s lack of defenses this is like a giant “interrupt, blind, or insta burst me” sign and this is essentially one of our resources that applies little pressure until much later after cast for something so fragile. Would be like if DD Vault had no evade frames. except that damage doesn’t die in cleave.

What would be cool is a way to fight against condies in the dueling line without making it OP in conjunction to the inspiration line. Why not give the mesmer access to some resistance ? How ? I would scrap the adept trait that puts you into stealth at 50% health because I simply can’t imagine any reasonable scenario in which I would want to passively gain stealth at 50%. We could then gain resistance in an active and meaningful way such as: “when blasting a field, mesmers gain resistance for 3 seconds”. 7 seconds cooldown. The effect is not applied when your allies are blasting the fields for you but you can chain blasting fields to increase the initial duration of resistance.

flog.3485:

What would be cool is a way to fight against condies in the dueling line without making it OP in conjunction to the inspiration line. Why not give the mesmer access to some resistance ? How ? I would scrap the adept trait that puts you into stealth at 50% health because I simply can’t imagine any reasonable scenario in which I would want to passively gain stealth at 50%. We could then gain resistance in an active and meaningful way such as: “when blasting a field, mesmers gain resistance for 3 seconds”. 7 seconds cooldown. The effect is not applied when your allies are blasting the fields for you but you can chain blasting fields to increase the initial duration of resistance.

Er…good idea, but mesmer only have one blast skill. And its on a very gimmicky torch 4.

Thematically I feel like mesmer isn’t suitable for resistance though. Transfer condi like arcane thievery sounds more mesmer-ish, regardless of how bad that skill is.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

flog.3485:

What would be cool is a way to fight against condies in the dueling line without making it OP in conjunction to the inspiration line. Why not give the mesmer access to some resistance ? How ? I would scrap the adept trait that puts you into stealth at 50% health because I simply can’t imagine any reasonable scenario in which I would want to passively gain stealth at 50%. We could then gain resistance in an active and meaningful way such as: “when blasting a field, mesmers gain resistance for 3 seconds”. 7 seconds cooldown. The effect is not applied when your allies are blasting the fields for you but you can chain blasting fields to increase the initial duration of resistance.

Er…good idea, but mesmer only have one blast skill. And its on a very gimmicky torch 4.

Thematically I feel like mesmer isn’t suitable for resistance though. Transfer condi like arcane thievery sounds more mesmer-ish, regardless of how bad that skill is.

I made a mistake about what I was trying to say (English is not my main language sorry). I was more thinking about any combo effect that mesmers can proc by any field of effect whether it is an ally or yourself…But now that I think of it, there is so much combo field that you can proc that, regarding my suggestion, you should not be able to stack the duration of resistance then. Let’s not forget that we have access to CS as well

flog.3485:

What would be cool is a way to fight against condies in the dueling line without making it OP in conjunction to the inspiration line. Why not give the mesmer access to some resistance ? How ? I would scrap the adept trait that puts you into stealth at 50% health because I simply can’t imagine any reasonable scenario in which I would want to passively gain stealth at 50%. We could then gain resistance in an active and meaningful way such as: “when blasting a field, mesmers gain resistance for 3 seconds”. 7 seconds cooldown. The effect is not applied when your allies are blasting the fields for you but you can chain blasting fields to increase the initial duration of resistance.

Note that I am biased and hate the resistance boon with a passion. I don’t think it ever should have been introduced to the game, much less in its current state. So I do not want to see it added to mesmer. It was bad enough that it was added to SoI imo. I still think the best way to diversify our condi cleanse is to move menders purity to either domination or dueling. This gives power mesmer more condi cleanse and would do so much to lessen our dependence on the inspiration traitline

OriOri.8724:

flog.3485:

What would be cool is a way to fight against condies in the dueling line without making it OP in conjunction to the inspiration line. Why not give the mesmer access to some resistance ? How ? I would scrap the adept trait that puts you into stealth at 50% health because I simply can’t imagine any reasonable scenario in which I would want to passively gain stealth at 50%. We could then gain resistance in an active and meaningful way such as: “when blasting a field, mesmers gain resistance for 3 seconds”. 7 seconds cooldown. The effect is not applied when your allies are blasting the fields for you but you can chain blasting fields to increase the initial duration of resistance.

Note that I am biased and hate the resistance boon with a passion. I don’t think it ever should have been introduced to the game, much less in its current state. So I do not want to see it added to mesmer. It was bad enough that it was added to SoI imo. I still think the best way to diversify our condi cleanse is to move menders purity to either domination or dueling. This gives power mesmer more condi cleanse and would do so much to lessen our dependence on the inspiration traitline

Ok. Thx for the heads up, care to disagree then but whatever happens (if it ever happens), I would be glad to not only rely on inspiration for some condi cleanses. Just sharing some wild suggestion there.

Trait for signets – you can cleanse one condi with each signet used.

Too dependant to Mender’s Purity and Inspiration line, agree.

iDesenchanter needs a target and is a ranged projectile.
Arcane Thievery also needs a target.
Well of Eternity is a pulsing 3 condi clears.

You’re left with the only viable skill : Mantra of Resolve. So what I do, is Signet Trait + Mantra of Resolve, but again… Ehhh not getting any success in ranked PvP with that.

Signet of the Ether is healing too little and have a long cooldown. You’re only left with Mantra of Resolve.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Trait for signets – you can cleanse one condi with each signet used.

Two problems with this.

• 1: You have to drop your heal + utilities for signits. This is utility power mesmers need for survival, such as decoy for stealth/stun break, blink for mobility/stun break, and the grand master of all utility- portal .

• 2: By taking sig trait you drop boon strip. Mes might have a strong burst, but nothing will water it down worse than protection -_-u – 33% damage reduction with 35 year periods between F1 bursts? Ouch.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Trait for signets – you can cleanse one condi with each signet used.

Two problems with this.

• 1: You have to drop your heal + utilities for signits. This is utility power mesmers need for survival, such as decoy for stealth/stun break, blink for mobility/stun break, and the grand master of all utility- portal .

• 2: By taking sig trait you drop boon strip. Mes might have a strong burst, but nothing will water it down worse than protection -_-u – 33% damage reduction with 35 year periods between F1 bursts? Ouch.

Yeah, training signets is a great way to hit like a wet noodle while simultaneously having zero useful team utility, mobility, or escapes.

Make arcane thievery hit most of the time and reduce its cool down to 30s, currently it is still hit and miss, mostly miss I found tbh. 30s base cool down makes it a great boon hate and cleanse option while traiting brings it down to 24s instead of 28s so can justify chaos line in a power build.

Disenchanter if running illusions and chronophantasma is a decent cleanse but suffers from all phantasm mechanics. That is that it misses a lot and has a lot of randomness, it also scales very poorly as numbers increase so isn’t great outside of dueling.

To be honest it would be nice if it was a clone skill class, 20s CD and removes a condition and boon for each clone up in the world, 600 range 5 enemies and 5 allies. It has the capacity to be better than arcane thievery or a lot worse. That is however what I might be tempted to do if getting rid of phantasms as I keep saying needs to happen.

Between these and well of eternity you can get decent condition cleanse in a power build though traiting inspiration is just so much nicer tbh.

apharma.3741:

Make arcane thievery hit most of the time and reduce its cool down to 30s, currently it is still hit and miss, mostly miss I found tbh. 30s base cool down makes it a great boon hate and cleanse option while traiting brings it down to 24s instead of 28s so can justify chaos line in a power build.

Disenchanter if running illusions and chronophantasma is a decent cleanse but suffers from all phantasm mechanics. That is that it misses a lot and has a lot of randomness, it also scales very poorly as numbers increase so isn’t great outside of dueling.

To be honest it would be nice if it was a clone skill class, 20s CD and removes a condition and boon for each clone up in the world, 600 range 5 enemies and 5 allies. It has the capacity to be better than arcane thievery or a lot worse. That is however what I might be tempted to do if getting rid of phantasms as I keep saying needs to happen.

Between these and well of eternity you can get decent condition cleanse in a power build though traiting inspiration is just so much nicer tbh.

If you ignore the phantasm part entirely, and I mean pretend like it doesnt exist, iDisenchanter is a better cleanse than Arcane Thievery if you’re traiting the Illusions line anyway. Mechanically it works way better on a far lower CD (is it 16s? plus reduction if you’ve got reduction per phant shattered traited).

If AC was brought down to the level of iDisenchanter’s CD and casting effectiveness, then and only then would it compete. As is iDisenchanter is the superior pick.

Ross Biddle.2367:

apharma.3741:

Make arcane thievery hit most of the time and reduce its cool down to 30s, currently it is still hit and miss, mostly miss I found tbh. 30s base cool down makes it a great boon hate and cleanse option while traiting brings it down to 24s instead of 28s so can justify chaos line in a power build.

Disenchanter if running illusions and chronophantasma is a decent cleanse but suffers from all phantasm mechanics. That is that it misses a lot and has a lot of randomness, it also scales very poorly as numbers increase so isn’t great outside of dueling.

To be honest it would be nice if it was a clone skill class, 20s CD and removes a condition and boon for each clone up in the world, 600 range 5 enemies and 5 allies. It has the capacity to be better than arcane thievery or a lot worse. That is however what I might be tempted to do if getting rid of phantasms as I keep saying needs to happen.

Between these and well of eternity you can get decent condition cleanse in a power build though traiting inspiration is just so much nicer tbh.

If you ignore the phantasm part entirely, and I mean pretend like it doesnt exist, iDisenchanter is a better cleanse than Arcane Thievery if you’re traiting the Illusions line anyway. Mechanically it works way better on a far lower CD (is it 16s? plus reduction if you’ve got reduction per phant shattered traited).

If AC was brought down to the level of iDisenchanter’s CD and casting effectiveness, then and only then would it compete. As is iDisenchanter is the superior pick.

20s base and 16s traited and yeah I know it’s better if you ignore the phantasm aspect but that’s like calling trump an excellent businessman if you ignore all the bankruptcy and hatred he has.

It’s a pretty big thing to ignore tbh that it’s an object in the game world that can be killed as quick as any clone especially in WvW. The problem with making AC something like 20s is that it’s actually a really strong skill if it hits sending 3 conditions to the enemy and stealing 3 boons, it’s a big swing.

Ross Biddle.2367:

apharma.3741:

Make arcane thievery hit most of the time and reduce its cool down to 30s, currently it is still hit and miss, mostly miss I found tbh. 30s base cool down makes it a great boon hate and cleanse option while traiting brings it down to 24s instead of 28s so can justify chaos line in a power build.

Disenchanter if running illusions and chronophantasma is a decent cleanse but suffers from all phantasm mechanics. That is that it misses a lot and has a lot of randomness, it also scales very poorly as numbers increase so isn’t great outside of dueling.

To be honest it would be nice if it was a clone skill class, 20s CD and removes a condition and boon for each clone up in the world, 600 range 5 enemies and 5 allies. It has the capacity to be better than arcane thievery or a lot worse. That is however what I might be tempted to do if getting rid of phantasms as I keep saying needs to happen.

Between these and well of eternity you can get decent condition cleanse in a power build though traiting inspiration is just so much nicer tbh.

If you ignore the phantasm part entirely, and I mean pretend like it doesnt exist, iDisenchanter is a better cleanse than Arcane Thievery if you’re traiting the Illusions line anyway. Mechanically it works way better on a far lower CD (is it 16s? plus reduction if you’ve got reduction per phant shattered traited).

If AC was brought down to the level of iDisenchanter’s CD and casting effectiveness, then and only then would it compete. As is iDisenchanter is the superior pick.

Problem is that the pDisenchanter cast is an aoe effect centered on the target, it doesn’t remove condies from you unless you happen to be in that aoe. That’s the primary difference.

Fay.2357:

Ross Biddle.2367:

apharma.3741:

Make arcane thievery hit most of the time and reduce its cool down to 30s, currently it is still hit and miss, mostly miss I found tbh. 30s base cool down makes it a great boon hate and cleanse option while traiting brings it down to 24s instead of 28s so can justify chaos line in a power build.

Disenchanter if running illusions and chronophantasma is a decent cleanse but suffers from all phantasm mechanics. That is that it misses a lot and has a lot of randomness, it also scales very poorly as numbers increase so isn’t great outside of dueling.

To be honest it would be nice if it was a clone skill class, 20s CD and removes a condition and boon for each clone up in the world, 600 range 5 enemies and 5 allies. It has the capacity to be better than arcane thievery or a lot worse. That is however what I might be tempted to do if getting rid of phantasms as I keep saying needs to happen.

Between these and well of eternity you can get decent condition cleanse in a power build though traiting inspiration is just so much nicer tbh.

If you ignore the phantasm part entirely, and I mean pretend like it doesnt exist, iDisenchanter is a better cleanse than Arcane Thievery if you’re traiting the Illusions line anyway. Mechanically it works way better on a far lower CD (is it 16s? plus reduction if you’ve got reduction per phant shattered traited).

If AC was brought down to the level of iDisenchanter’s CD and casting effectiveness, then and only then would it compete. As is iDisenchanter is the superior pick.

Problem is that the pDisenchanter cast is an aoe effect centered on the target, it doesn’t remove condies from you unless you happen to be in that aoe. That’s the primary difference.

I see. That’s a bummer.