Guild Wars 2

Includes all professions. Listen to devs’ thought on the mesmer change.

One interesting thing is that Robert Gee mentioned both Bountiful Disillusionment and Master of Fragmentation will benefit Chronomancer F5 shatter. The former gives resistance and the latter applies slow to enemies when you continuum rift ends.

Also, I checked thief part. They specifically mentioned there three stolen skills got changed not including consume plasma. So if you see a thief traiting Improvisation, be prepared to fight against them with close to 100% uptime of all these boons.

Yes, because consume plasma did not need to be looked at but the other three did. Great.

I enjoy Robert. He seems very passionate about the professions he designs – if a bit nervous.

Great job Robert and Josh – appreciate it and I for one really look forward to trying out the new Mesmer changes.

Robert seemed quite fair when he was talking about his class and his thought patterns behind toning skills down so they aren’t TOO op.

The guy after him however when he was talking about thief and guardian. Josh and him basically spent the entire time chuckling to themselves about how OP it was but it’s okay cos thief and guard are supposed to be OP, hehe.

Dastion.3106:

I enjoy Robert. He seems very passionate about the professions he designs – if a bit nervous.

Great job Robert and Josh – appreciate it and I for one really look forward to trying out the new Mesmer changes.

I agree, he is awesome. Necro and Mesmer got the most skill based and unique changes.

I’m a little confused on something he said when talking about the new PU. He said that the 100% stealth increase only affected allies that the Mesmer stealths. And then he said something like it would be too OP if was whenever a Mesmer receives stealth.

Usually, when a skill/trait states it “affects allies”, the caster is usually included as an ally. But how Roger said it, made it sound like the Mesmer doesn’t get 100% stealth, just his allies. I would assume the Mesmer is included, but how he said it just put some question in my mind.

I like the part where he said “Phantasmal Haste didn’t apply to some phantasms, like the swordsman” (paraphrase, not quote).

1. PH didn’t apply to 1 phantasm, not “some”.
2. It’s warden, not swordsman

Other than that, I’m actually very satisfied with his work. He added like 3 dimensions of complexity to the class, especially in PvE! That is exactly what I wanted, a playstyle or playstyles that are much more involved that the current meta of summon phantasms and hit 11111.

SlimChance.6593:

I’m a little confused on something he said when talking about the new PU. He said that the 100% stealth increase only affected allies that the Mesmer stealths. And then he said something like it would be too OP if was whenever a Mesmer receives stealth.

Usually, when a skill/trait states it “affects allies”, the caster is usually included as an ally. But how Roger said it, made it sound like the Mesmer doesn’t get 100% stealth, just his allies. I would assume the Mesmer is included, but how he said it just put some question in my mind.

What he meant is, that it only affects stealth-skills that you use. It does not affect stealth that you get from Thieves or other Mesmers (who do not run PU), or from Engineers etc.

I wonder if it affects stealth that you gain from blasting a smoke-field, though. I kinda think it should, as it is stealth that you apply.

It affects outgoing stealth … so your Mass Invis is will doubled for everyone you apply it to … that includes yourself.

This is different from what he was talking about which would be incoming stealth … that would mean that any stealth applied to you, by anyone, would be doubled.

I’m curious what fighting two PU Mesmers would be like … besides an obvious headache …

frifox.5283:

I like the part where he said “Phantasmal Haste didn’t apply to some phantasms, like the swordsman” (paraphrase, not quote).

1. PH didn’t apply to 1 phantasm, not “some”.
2. It’s warden, not swordsman

Other than that, I’m actually very satisfied with his work. He added like 3 dimensions of complexity to the class, especially in PvE! That is exactly what I wanted, a playstyle or playstyles that are much more involved that the current meta of summon phantasms and hit 11111.

Could you elaborate on that a bit? How will PvE Mesmer be changing?

It’s hard to elaborate on something not live yet but I’ll go ahead and list a few.

Ability to double-cast utilities with Mimic. Double Portal is a HUGE buff to mesmers, especially those participating in record runs. Previously quite a few record runs had 2x mesmers specifically for double-portal but now post patch 1x mes can the same on his own.

Blowing all mantras for burst +21% dmg modifier opens up new all-or-nothing approach to fb’ing lupi. That, and ability to burst build +ferocity stat with as many Fencers Finesse stacks as you can for that juicy nuke. Before, the same encounter was a simple ‘keep my hp above 90’ and ‘dodge for 3 clones’ which got boring too quickly.

With Harmonious Mantra (the staple of meta builds) out of domination you can now afford to slot in Power Block, since the competing traits are pretty underwhelming. PB locking down key skills for 15 sec is a nice bonus.

Condi cap removal is a godsend and next week you should be able to bring STAFF to dungeons and not feel bad, as long as you min/max gear and build just like you would with zerk setups.

Inspiring Distortion minor will invuln your whole party when you invuln yourself and with PvE being extremely predictable, you will now be able to completely negate those 1-hit-KO spikes for the whole party. This will synergize quite well with Blurred Inscriptions trait as well as with Illusionary Persona finally going baseline. There are also places in dungeons which you can’t reach unless you’re invuln, and Inspiring Distortion will now let you bring the whole party past those “barriers”.

The “3 dimentions of complexity” was mostly referring to Chronomancer F5, which will be quite a beast to juggle when combined with all of the above & Mimic but I’ll leave that for HoT since Chrono isn’t really coming next week.

Hype.. Intensifies!

Combination of F5,Mimic and SoI is going to offer interesting options:
F5, Moa, F5, Mimic, SoI, F5, Moa, F5, Mimic(SoI), F5, Moa, F5, Moa

Korusef.3714:

Combination of F5,Mimic and SoI is going to offer interesting options:
F5, Moa, F5, Mimic, SoI, F5, Moa, F5, Mimic(SoI), F5, Moa, F5, Moa

Lol.

Could do the same with timewarp, I guess. Oh the possibilities!~~

:D

Edit: Lol; apparently smilies only get changed if there’s something else written before them (on the same line)…

Also – I wonder what it was that Robert could have spoiled by swapping Mesmer utilities on-screen?

It can’t have been related to racials since those aren’t available in sPvP, unless they are going to be made available I suppose. I can’t think of what could have been done with Mesmer utilities that we don’t already know.

I didn’t watch every class section yet, was there anything similar in other sections?

Also I remember hearing something about them still tweaking the duration F5, so I think we can expect there to be some nerfs that will prevent the above multi-Moa type of thing.

It’s going to be very difficult to balance F5 between being useful/cool and not being OPd. They will either have to straight up exclude certain abilities, or find some other imaginative ways to exclude at the very least all Elite’s. In fact maybe that’ll be it, that you can only affect your utilities 1-9 abilities with F5.

We’ll see soon enough I suppose, but first off I’m looking forward to tomorrow!

If F5 doesn’t affect elites, why would I want to be Chronomancer again? That’s the whole point of taking the tree.

Carighan.6758:

If F5 doesn’t affect elites, why would I want to be Chronomancer again? That’s the whole point of taking the tree.

That and the nice mobility trait and the slow trait and …
But as somebody else pointed out if F5 works on elites it might lead to some nerfing of our elites and that would make F5 mandatory …