Guild Wars 2

Three out of four of our changes so far have been overnerfs. Two changes were ‘warranted’ in my opinion, but not to the extent they were nerfed. I propose a middle ground be struck in effort to preserve these skills usefulness.

Power Block is fine, and can remain as is.

Chaotic Dampening, was overnerfed to the point it is worse than a flat 20% reduction, and it forces the mesmer into a predictable skill usage rotation to achieve that less than stellar result, For a slightly better result ‘another’ Ethereal Field would have to be used, or potentially prematurely forcing a weapon swap, and it gets even more predictable for even higher diminishing returns (Congrats you used a utility skill to shave a few seconds off some abilities) I suggest the skill be increased to 3.5% per second.

Maim the Disillusioned is worse than it was prepatch, It isn’t worth shattering a duelist phantasm or a staff clone for. There is no ‘burst’ now. Up the Torment per Shatter to 2 stacks for 4 seconds, Instead of the 1 stack for 6 seconds. (Orginal being 2 stacks for 6 seconds) The total damage would be closer to what we would achieved prepatch without IP baseline, but also allows the skill to be deadly if it lands and isn’t ignored.

Healing Prism. The change was very much warranted in regards to being healed while downed or Vampiric Aura from necros. – But a 10 Second ICD makes it worse than ‘non regen’ ‘regeneration’ buffs from other classes, as those tend to have a fairly large range around the profession (Soothing Mist from Elly, Resolve, Guardian). Simply add a 1 or 2 second ICD to the old version. – Or make the entire skill percentile based. That way the trait can be tracked, counted on, and utilized instead of being some random, short range by product. It also still would allow for class synergy with Necromancer. Which quite frankly THEY need.

Edit: Healing Prism, not Crystal.

Good suggestions, I am happy with all of those and hope they get implemented asap.

Yea, these are good suggiestions. At this nerf rate arenanet will take the joy out of the mesmer before even HoT hits.

Yeah anets balancing is a joke always has been, Turret engineer was around for a year before it saw a single change and Mesmer things that are out for less than 3 days get nerfed into the ground? I almost like their stance of balance early and often but I won’t believe it till I see the chaotic dampening get buffed back to something better than a flat 20% cooldown. Remember guys, if other classes can roll their face on their keyboards and do massive condition damage with 2 free defensive stats, mesmers MUST go full zerk fall over if they’re looked at and do less damage than them even if you land a perfect shatter, it’s just how it should be….

Do we know why Chaotic Dampening got nerfed? I know the theoretical cdr was through the roof, but what could you actually achieve with the skillcasts thus generated?
Chaos Storm is always praised as being a very impactful skill (mainly in sPvP I presume), but the other Staff skills are rather lackluster without some external input. All of them require active play to use properly, and can be countered to some extent. There is no direct “win condition” attached (except maybe CS on downed), unlike for example a full shatter burst or double iDuelist from stealth (with daze mantra for extra fun!)

Since these “ruin it for everyone” nerfs usually originate from sPvP I’m genuinely surprised it wasn’t PU to take the first hit, way more annoying for “noobs” than a constant spam of random purple bubbles.

Speaking of PU, since many call it OP and The Pledge useless, what if those two were reversed: traited torch gets 30-50% flat cdr, but PU gives little to no duration increase (max 1s), possibly with an un-nerf of the boon table (prot/regen per second stealthed, Aegis on start and end to punish camping?)

Photoloss.4817:

Do we know why Chaotic Dampening got nerfed? I know the theoretical cdr was through the roof, but what could you actually achieve with the skillcasts thus generated?

From what I’ve seen , going balls to the walls Chaos Armor back to back, You could achieve around a 13 second cooldown Chaos Storm, Which I admit, IS a bit too powerful when coupled with things like Power Block and Chaotic Interruption. However, the trait just needed a slight nerf. Not butchered to less than 20% on some skills after two chaos armors. While every other profession is enjoying their 20% reduction by virtue of simply selecting the trait, and not becoming predictable in your actions.

“Oh the Mesmer used Chaos Storm, I wonder if he’s going to Phase Retreat through it. Followed by using Staff 4. – Guess I’ll just time my burst and CC after he wastes his escape.”

Would those interrupt traits be severely hindered by a 1-5s ICD? Or give Chaos Storm a longer cast animation, or bias the random procs towards being more potent towards the end of the duration? Cap it to 1 daze pulse per cast?

Basically, tone down the maximum benefit from specific synergies, or add counterplay which would be relevant for PvP formats without completely ruining an entire weapon and potential playstyle for PvE (and dumb WvW zergs)

I think Chaotic Dampening should have a 3% cooldown but also reduce the cooldown of chaos armor (staff 4 only) and the Trident 3 skill by a flat 20%.

I think this would combat getting too much chaos armor via utilities and put focus more on the staff traits. Ill TRY to work out the math but i’m probably way off so please forgive me if i am.

Chaos Storm 35s cooldown – The chaos armor for leaping through this is 5s duration so

3% would = a 15% cooldown = 5.25 seconds = 29.75 recharge for Chaos Storm

Then if you add Chaos armor (staff 4) immediately after the leap chaos armor you get
a 30% cooldown of Chaos Storm (-)10.5 seconds = 24.5 sec recharge

(Personally i don’t think this is OP as you have to activate 3 staff skills including a leap finisher to achieve it and Elementalist cooldown traits are a flat 33% for doing nothing and they also add nice bonuses like 10% damage)

So on to Chaos Armor
Chaos Armor if a flat 20% was reduced = 28 second cooldown
Chaos armor duration 5 seconds
Conditional recharge of 3% on 28 seconds = 4.3 second recharge
Gives us a total of 23.7 sec recharge (call it 24 secs which is extremely close to the same recharge now as Chaos storm with both leap finisher and chaos armor added)
Synergy!! pmg! it would recharge pretty much the same as Chaos storm

This would give a decent recharge to staff skills without making them too OP by taking other ethereal field utilities to leap through to give HUGE reductions in staff skills as every Ethereal leap finisher would only reduce this way by 15%

edit- I forgot to add, this (the flat 20% reduction to staff 4) would also help reduce Chaos Storm for those situations when you aren’t able to leap through it such as in WvW casting it into a zerg to etc

Photoloss.4817:

Would those interrupt traits be severely hindered by a 1-5s ICD? Or give Chaos Storm a longer cast animation, or bias the random procs towards being more potent towards the end of the duration? Cap it to 1 daze pulse per cast?

Basically, tone down the maximum benefit from specific synergies, or add counterplay which would be relevant for PvP formats without completely ruining an entire weapon and potential playstyle for PvE (and dumb WvW zergs)

ICD for Power Block and Interrupts would basically ruin it completely. Nothing is more satisfying than greatsword 5 on a group, and getting 3 different interrupts. An extremely rare occurance but it happens. Chaos Storm has already been nerfed from launch with a longer cooldown, at least twice, and it’s already something that may not even triggered the desired effect. Capping any of it would ruin the skill.

Chaotic Dampening has plenty of counter-play, You’re committing yourself to do a set of different skills to trigger Chaos Armor. Even for the simple double Chaos Armor of Chaos Storm + Phase Retreat + Staff 4, and a ton more if you follow it up with another utility or weapon swapping/sword leap, torch burst. Ever get CC’d without Phase Retreat up? Because that’s what it sets you up for. There is a huge risk to it against even moderately experienced players. Use a utility to get out of trouble, now that’s on cooldown, Or die. – and those are pretty big risks.

Committing just those 2 skills for faster recharge for x2 Chaos Armor for a 20% Reduction on Chaos Storm, Phase Retreat and a 10% Reduction, is just needless busywork with no real benefit over just giving us a flat 20% pre patch.

3 times more effort, for ‘almost’ the same result. Which was essentially our class motto pre-patch, and it’s on the fast track to that again.

Where as other professions just enjoy their 20% coupled with whatever other benefit the traits often give. (Protection in our case.)

Higher ICD but per target then?

In case that wasn’t clear, those suggestions were meant to be coupled with restoring Chaotic Dampening to 5% per tick (or even more?), and not all of them should be implemented simultaneously.

My idea was to specifically limit the potentially overpowered synergy of constant AoE interrupts without nerfing the raw numerical power of the traits, in hopes of salvaging some PvE use.

If there is enough counterplay to Chaotic Dampening already, then there was no reason to nerf the trait in the first place.

Photoloss.4817:

If there is enough counterplay to Chaotic Dampening already, then there was no reason to nerf the trait in the first place.

This is essentially the new mesmer motto, but apply it to most skills that get nerfed and it’s perfect.

They simply did not give Chaotic Dampening or Maim a chance for the playerbase to realize how much counter-play there is to those two abilities, and in Maim’s case. – Incredibly easy stacking of burning (no changes since patch) is all good, but torment? Big no go.

A guardian presses a button, boom, teleports to you from behind a wall, instant stacks of burning. Add more multi hit skills, Effortless.

1-3 Illusions + Mesmer charging you to Shatter. I wonder which has the bigger tell that theres incoming damage.

Albeit some things needed to be tweaked. Like Healing Prism, They just over-do things when it comes to our profession.

thetarot.8246:

Photoloss.4817:

Would those interrupt traits be severely hindered by a 1-5s ICD? Or give Chaos Storm a longer cast animation, or bias the random procs towards being more potent towards the end of the duration? Cap it to 1 daze pulse per cast?

Basically, tone down the maximum benefit from specific synergies, or add counterplay which would be relevant for PvP formats without completely ruining an entire weapon and potential playstyle for PvE (and dumb WvW zergs)

ICD for Power Block and Interrupts would basically ruin it completely. Nothing is more satisfying than greatsword 5 on a group, and getting 3 different interrupts. An extremely rare occurance but it happens. Chaos Storm has already been nerfed from launch with a longer cooldown, at least twice, and it’s already something that may not even triggered the desired effect. Capping any of it would ruin the skill.

Chaotic Dampening has plenty of counter-play, You’re committing yourself to do a set of different skills to trigger Chaos Armor. Even for the simple double Chaos Armor of Chaos Storm + Phase Retreat + Staff 4, and a ton more if you follow it up with another utility or weapon swapping/sword leap, torch burst. Ever get CC’d without Phase Retreat up? Because that’s what it sets you up for. There is a huge risk to it against even moderately experienced players. Use a utility to get out of trouble, now that’s on cooldown, Or die. – and those are pretty big risks.

Committing just those 2 skills for faster recharge for x2 Chaos Armor for a 20% Reduction on Chaos Storm, Phase Retreat and a 10% Reduction, is just needless busywork with no real benefit over just giving us a flat 20% pre patch.

3 times more effort, for ‘almost’ the same result. Which was essentially our class motto pre-patch, and it’s on the fast track to that again.

Where as other professions just enjoy their 20% coupled with whatever other benefit the traits often give. (Protection in our case.)

+1

I have lost faith with Anet’s balance team. Just when you got something good, they take them right back again.

Hrm, what would I do…

• Maim the Disillusioned: Back to 2 stacks, 4s duration. More burst,steady damage is dealt via Phantasms, we need Shatter to be the burst. Plus it aligns well against Might on Shatter this way.
• Chaotic Dampening: Honestly not sure. Maybe 5% each time Chaotic Armor procs, instead of just while it’s active? But that’d make it pretty weak in PvE and much of WvW, too. Or just 3% as a compromise. Or remove Protection from it, and make it 7% per second. Actually I think I like that one best.
• Time Warp indirect nerf: No action needed, just do something about Feel My Wrath.
• Sharper Images / Confusing Combatants: Please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top? :S

Carighan.6758:

• Time Warp indirect nerf: No action needed, just do something about Feel My Wrath.

Time Warp nerf? Are they going to butcher Quickness AGAIN??? Please no, just slap the old tome cd onto FmW instead of the skill cd, then start buffing bit by bit.

And re: Chaotic Dampening: Is there any aspect the sPvP mesmers would admit to being OP about the original 5% version? I assumed it would be something about spamming Chaos Storm on a capture point running a tanky interrupt build, but if even that isn’t a problem just restore the trait now and shave exploit combos once they’re discovered.

I agree with most changes suggested by thetarot. For healing prism, I think the % way is best, and I don’t see how this could be a difficult thing on the technology side.

For the torment, just one thing I wanted to mention is that torment is not such a deadly condition. Its damage is 75% of a bleed if no movement and 150% if movement. Classes can stack 35 bleed on their own (including mesmers), so I don’t see why 8 torments would be that OP. So I think keeping 2 stacks but reducing it to 4s is the best suggestion.

@Carighan I do think the added protection is nice and should remain. It’s actually potentially more interesting than a CD reduction. I actually like the idea of CD reduction through chaos armor, but it must be worth it. I think 3% is a good compromise.