Guild Wars 2

I love all the people stating that the nerf was warranted while completely ignoring the argument.

Literally the only half logical reason for the nerf is that some bosses are horribly designed, and just stand still spamming a ranged attack. Guess what, that’s kitteny dungeon design. Don’t crap on our best DPS skill and best (debatable) utility because the dungeons aren’t designed well.

im pretty sure jon peters stated in beta that instead of nerfing classes like warriors they wanted to buff other classes like mesmer to be as powerful as them. i have yet to see this happen. now you may say no mesmer owns in pvp.. well, i haven’t pvp’d yet and as far as pve goes goes i don’t see this buff.

atm focus and torch are by far the most useless weapons ever created. a focus might be good to have in inventory for that random speed buff, but other than that useless. in pvp even more so considering iwarden does not chase a target. ud think being designed that way it would be able to immobolize someone, but no. torch is? who uses that… lol.

i am not saying mesmer is totally useless but its god kitten close. anywho hey mister Peters, when do we get buffs rather than nerf/bug bats? or was that just to appease the crowd?

Try and imagine the storm of kittens if today’s patch notes for Guardian read: “Reduced damage dealt by whirling wrath by 50%”. Because, this is pretty much what just happened to us.

a focus might be good to have in inventory for that random speed buff

The focus is the friend of the tactician. Traited, you can use temporal curtain as a speed buff OR an anti-projectile barrier, AND you can detonate it as a pull – for example, place the curtain in a wall or corner, and you can slam your enemies into a neat pile for easy nuking, or rip them off one of your buddies…

…or if you’re getting fed up with everyone stealling the kills in orr, rip the mobs away at some unexpected angle to buy you time to tag them yourself

Warden can be throw onto a ranged enemy to deflect their projectiles and/or force them to waste time kiting, or thrown into a group to cause mass murder, you could also use the warden for cover while you jump into the fray and get slashing too.

Ryuujin.8236:

Try and imagine the storm of kittens if today’s patch notes for Guardian read: “Reduced damage dealt by whirling wrath by 50%”. Because, this is pretty much what just happened to us

If Whirling Wrath was originally bugged to produce +100% damage, then maybe it wouldn’t be a kitten storm.

The Empowered Phantasm trait clearly states it’s a 20% reduction in phantasm skill c/d. That would equate to a 20% damage increase by using the trait (in a battle that lasted long enough for the phantasms to actually attack twice).

It’s hard to argue it’s a nerf when the trait was making iWarden attack 100% faster. Clearly it’s a bug fix to bring it into line with the trait’s description.

Keep in mind the iWarden still does the same damage for that first 5 seconds it’s out. Most event mobs don’t live long enough for a second phantasm attack anyway (and that’s assuming you didn’t shatter them or the phantasms weren’t taken out by AoE).

If anything, it makes it a little easier to not slot Empowered Phantasms and go with Elasticity instead.

Warden’s CD with Phantasmal Haste Bug Fix was just that, a Bug Fix.

It doesn’t mean that the bug fix didn’t hurt, especially as they fixed the part that was overpowered and left the bug in his AI which makes him think he has “Scepter” like range rather then being a melee.

Its the perception, whether being true or a delusion, that ANet simply Nerfs our class by fixing the bugs that makes us stronger and leaving behind the class weakening ones and YET too have the time to polish/rebalance whats left. In essence, nerfing us each update in total while we stare at the bug riddled remnants of what they “Fixed”.

Phantasms still die insanely easy during the first moments they are summoned, even with Signet of Illusions.
Clones doing no damage, which is still something I cannot recall having an official response from ANet about. (Something their Class Description page suggests is still wrong, as they say Phantasms deal more damage then Clones. Not Phantasms actually deal damage, when clones don’t.)
Staff Clones using the old Winds of Chaos, and not being affected by Illusionary Elasticity.
Scepters.
Clones/Phantasms being unaffected by Condition Duration for conditions they pass out, when considering its out biggest source for Bleeds.
Confusion in PvE effectiveness.

Generally that and a Dev or at least the update notice gives the impression of “Okay, we are working on the Mesmer with the majority of our attention.” rather then “Something broke in an advantageous way for the Mesmer, here is the fix for just that and we’ll get around to the class weakening ones later when we balance and polish the class at an undetermined, if at all, future time after the other classes.”

MLieBennett.9031:

Its the perception, whether being true or a delusion, that ANet simply Nerfs our class by fixing the bugs that makes us stronger and leaving behind the class weakening ones and YET have time to polish/rebalance whats left. In essence, nerfing us each update in total while we stare at the bug riddled remnants of what they “Fixed”.

I agree it feels “wrong” when the bug fixes are for the OP stuff and not the other broken things which hurt mesmer. I think they are focusing on the OP bugs with higher priority since those may be more game “breaking” than the other stuff.

Unrelated: regarding phantasms and clones, mine live through 2 or 3 hits. I believe this is because I’m traited 0/0/20/30/20 which gives them bonuses to toughness and vit. I don’t use the signet so I believe there’s something to this build approach which helps the illusions.

@juno
I’m talking about say…
The I.Warden seems to die from a sneeze the moment its first summoned, and likely will die if the enemy drops even a small dmging AoE at his own feet. If its out for a few seconds before being hit, it can take 10% of my max HP in damage. If its out for quite a while before being hit, it can take 20% of my max HP in damage. And thats with Signet of Illusions not being in my skillbar.

Its HARD to try to make sure this is true, as damage done to the Phantasm doesn’t show up in the combat log. But that is the general impression I am getting.

Before:

iWardenCDNew = 0.2*iWardenCDOld

After:

iWardenCDNew = (1-0.2)*iWardenCDOld

Stupid math. lol

MLieBennett.9031:

Warden’s CD with Phantasmal Haste Bug Fix was just that, a Bug Fix.

It doesn’t mean that the bug fix didn’t hurt, especially as they fixed the part that was overpowered and left the bug in his AI which makes him think he has “Scepter” like range rather then being a melee.

I think you misunderstand. Posters are saying it’s a nerf instead of a bug fix is because the bug still exists. The bug is that Phantasmal Haste is not reducing phantasm skills’ recharge by the correct amount. The new “fix” does NOT, I repeat NOT, adjust iwarden to the correct timing, AND it fails to address any other phantasms’ skills. FYI, the iwarden’s whirl is now slower than if it got the correct -20% recharge. So it is clearly a nerf until the trait is properly fixed to work as intended. They saw iwarden was clearly OP, threw in a quick “fix” /nerf (which they got wrong, and thus nerfed the skill AND trait) and left the bug in place.

Yah. For the folks saying this is a bug FIX, it is not a bug fix

Post-patch, Warden’s rate of attack is boosted by 10% with phantasmal haste. The tooltip says 20% – while previously it was attacking almost 50% too often, now it attacks almost 50% too slowly. this is not a fix this is replacing one bug wioth an even worse bug!

Anyone that thinks this was a “fix” to phantasmal haste or the warden simply doesn’t understand how the skills worked or work now.

ANet was notoriously awful at fixing bugs while being blind to balance.

Bug fixes effect balance, period. Balance needs to be considered when making changes regardless of if they are touted at “fixes” or not.

@Ryuujin
CD doesn’t start, until after the Weapon Skill finishes. The Whirl lasts about 5 seconds, I believe. Thus, the actual CD is 9 seconds, or 7.4 seconds if you factor in the Illusions’ 1.6 second delay to toggling a skill. 7.4 * 80% (Phantasmal Haste) is then roughly 6 seconds.

6 seconds + 5 seconds whirl + 1.6 seconds skill delay for Illusions is 12.6 seconds total.

In other words, the time the Phantasmal Haste traited I.Warden takes from the start of one Whirl to the next.

Its not bugged in reverse.

@Gaiawolf
It is a bug fix, as it wasn’t working as intended earlier. Its just ANet Devs seem to focus on fixing our bugs that only empower Mesmers, rather worrying about the bugs that cripple us equally as well. Hence, the Nerf-like feeling.

well, i’m glad i didn’t lean on using the focus as hard as so many of you apparantly did. i do fine with aoe damage using iberzerker, chaos storm and radiation field. as the mesmer is my third 80, i have other options if i really feel the need to tag everything in sight.

iWarden is still good even with this bug fix — no reason to stop using it. It’s not as good as before, but it was CLEARLY wrong before. Anyone arguing this point is a bit deluded imho. Comon, a massive damage AoE that absorbs/reflects projectiles with no down-time?

Is mesmer worse now than before the fix, absolutely because the skill is less powerful now. Call it a nerf if you want, but it was a nerf to correct something that was not functioning as designed (i.e. bug). That’s not the same as changing a skill working as designed.

Like all losses in life, the grief will pass in time

So they “fix” the warden, but at the same time, disregard all the rest of the phantasm that NEVER even benefited from the trait to begin with, the only phantasm that actually benefited from it, is now “fixed”, thanks again for making yet another major trait useless.

Once again the proven fact that cries win. This “fix” propably from sPVP, again a proven fact, don’t mix arena/ladder based PVP with PVE because one or the other will ruin the other…

Only skill i did any reasonable damage in dungeons with, now that is taken away… guess i won’t be needed in dungeons anymore.

pps. It’s a stationary phantasm, if you die because of it, you deserve to.

So instead of fixing the whole Phantasmal Haste trait mess, they simply did a quick nerf on the spot. Very unprofessional IMHO.

MLieBennett.9031:

@Ryuujin
CD doesn’t start, until after the Weapon Skill finishes. The Whirl lasts about 5 seconds, I believe. Thus, the actual CD is 9 seconds, or 7.4 seconds if you factor in the Illusions’ 1.6 second delay to toggling a skill. 7.4 * 80% (Phantasmal Haste) is then roughly 6 seconds.

6 seconds + 5 seconds whirl + 1.6 seconds skill delay for Illusions is 12.6 seconds total.

In other words, the time the Phantasmal Haste traited I.Warden takes from the start of one Whirl to the next.

Its not bugged in reverse.

@Gaiawolf
It is a bug fix, as it wasn’t working as intended earlier. Its just ANet Devs seem to focus on fixing our bugs that only empower Mesmers, rather worrying about the bugs that cripple us equally as well. Hence, the Nerf-like feeling.

You obviously don’t read the thread. If it was a bug fix nobody would be crying.

What happened is they fixed a bug and another one appeared. Making it have a longer CD then intended. It is suppose to have a 5 sec recharge time (not lasting attack time RECHARGE TIME it is in the notes) It does not have a 5 second recharge time it has a 9ish (I don’t have the exact time but its between 9-10) without haste it has a 12 second.

So what is the change? Are they suppose to have a 5 sec recharge or 10 second? Not to mention half our kitten phantasms are unaffected by haste itself.

It’s a mixed feeling for this. I’ll consider this as a bug fix as well as a nerf.

Personally, I feel that this “fix” is needed to make it such that the skill is not overpowered. Ranged mobs have practically no chance against it before the “fix”. This just makes it overpowered.
On the other hand, by not fixing the other phantasm to put it in line with this trait and thus leaving this trait useless as well as introducing a new bug that leaves the iWarden with a longer attack delay kinda puts me off.

— oot
For those who say Mesmers don’t have good AOE to tag mobs, this just means you haven’t played enough.
You have Chaos Storm, and iBerserker to AoE. You can trait Illusionary Persona to do a self-Mind Wrack to tag mobs. If you have your illusions out, just send them over to Mind Wrack to tag. Sword1,2 also have a small AoE (although it only hits 3 max), so does Trick Shot for pistol.

For dungeon AOE, Chaos Storm, Null Field, Time Warp are actually very good support AOE because of the combo field.

Sollanon.8450:

It’s a mixed feeling for this. I’ll consider this as a bug fix as well as a nerf.

Personally, I feel that this “fix” is needed to make it such that the skill is not overpowered. Ranged mobs have practically no chance against it before the “fix”. This just makes it overpowered.
On the other hand, by not fixing the other phantasm to put it in line with this trait and thus leaving this trait useless as well as introducing a new bug that leaves the iWarden with a longer attack delay kinda puts me off.

— oot
For those who say Mesmers don’t have good AOE to tag mobs, this just means you haven’t played enough.
You have Chaos Storm, and iBerserker to AoE. You can trait Illusionary Persona to do a self-Mind Wrack to tag mobs. If you have your illusions out, just send them over to Mind Wrack to tag. Sword1,2 also have a small AoE (although it only hits 3 max), so does Trick Shot for pistol.

For dungeon AOE, Chaos Storm, Null Field, Time Warp are actually very good support AOE because of the combo field.

lol Chaos Storm for tagging mobs, good joke.

This was clearly a bug and needed to be fixed. I do admit, however, that it irks me that they fixed the Phantasm that works in our favor (Warden) while leaving several Phantasms still not working with haste. IMO they should have fixed it all at once, if it’s not ready this week then do it next week. It’s not as if Warden was game breaking and needed to be fixed immediately.

Overall it’s not a huge deal in practice but the principle of it irritates me a bit.

MLieBennett.9031:

@Ryuujin
CD doesn’t start, until after the Weapon Skill finishes. The Whirl lasts about 5 seconds, I believe. Thus, the actual CD is 9 seconds, or 7.4 seconds if you factor in the Illusions’ 1.6 second delay to toggling a skill. 7.4 * 80% (Phantasmal Haste) is then roughly 6 seconds.

6 seconds + 5 seconds whirl + 1.6 seconds skill delay for Illusions is 12.6 seconds total.

In other words, the time the Phantasmal Haste traited I.Warden takes from the start of one Whirl to the next.

Its not bugged in reverse.

Would you further explain the “Illusions’ 1.6 second delay to toggling a skill” part for me? It is a new concept to me and I don’t quite understand it. Does it exist on all phantasms or just multi-hit ones like Berserker, Warden, Duelist and Mariner? Thanks.

Celestian.2689:

So you’re playing a class that is deemed one of the 2 best classes and you’re QQ-ing it’s not balanced. Go play ele, you’ll quit the game, not just the class :P

Maybe in “arenas” but not anywhere else. Because in RvR they are not so great. I would say probably one of the LEAST effective in RvR. I ended up dropping my 80 mesmer and switching to engineer because frankly the mesmer brings only a few gimmick utilities and no punch. In almost every case you are better off with another class.

Couldn’t agree more.

Honestly I love my Mesmer. But I can’t stand playing it outside of sPVP. I don’t want to kitten my server by bring it to WvWvW specially if I can get more fun and usefulness by bringing my engineer or my elementalist.

And for PVE I don’t even know how to start this. The class mechanic simply fails for most dynamic events, as the class lacks consistant and periodic AoE dmg to tag multiple mobs as waves of them come to the players. Phantasms doesn’t last after mob death so this source of damage is basically useless for many events. On long lasting encounters like bosses phantasms usually cannot stay alive very long to allow for a decent constant DPS. And condition damage is plagued by caps so that if there are a lot of players with condition damage only some of them will register their conditions.

So while Mesmers have skills that are situationally awesome in PVE, they fundamentally lack the bread and butter tools to perform acceptably on the general situations.

The nerf to the Warden (or “fix” if you prefer) reduced Mesmer ability to outstand in certain situations without any compensation for the poor performance in a more general scenario.

I’ve been running Warden in PvE and WvW without the Phantasmal Haste “bug”, and it’s still a very viable skill (especially with Warden’s Feedback). The Warden never survives long enough to get a second attack cycle in anyway, so I do the practical thing and shred him after the first one. It helps to stop thinking of Phantasms as permanent pets and actually learn to use your shatters.

I ran with the Warden for some time, fully expecting it to be fixed eventually, but this is now broken. In situations where the only attacks are ranged projectile attacks, my warden is killed almost instantly, in the middle of its whirl. The reflection trait doesn’t work half the time (in AC, Lt. Kohler now actually pulls my wardens mid-whirl.) I’m not even getting a full attack cycle out of my wardens anymore, except when I sic them on completely inanimate destroyable objects.

I’m all in favor of fixing an obviously overpowered mechanic (Seriously, CM explorable was a joke with wardens) but this is overkill on something that was already very situationally useful. Add in Temporal Curtain’s knee-high reflective barrier, and there’s virtually no reason to use Warden’s Feedback anymore. I’d recommend Temporal Enchanter to boost Feedback’s duration instead.

How about instead of nerfing mesmers, they fix the dungeons.

It’s kind of like taking an exam where you happen to know all the answers from a TV show you saw the night before, then instead of improving the exam, the proctor punches you in the face and kicks you out.

You guys are pretty weird.

I tested in the Mist yesterday and there was an obvious difference in attack rate with/without PH for the phantasms I tested briefly: iS, iB, iD.

Sidenote: I don’t recall the patchnotes saying anything about iBerserker.

What the?

I’ll continue to use my scepter/focus combination, warden+confusing images is a good way to kill targets, when the warden is finished spinning, I’ll use her for mind wrack along with my 2 clones, simple as that. The 1 second delay between spins was broken, admit it.

um warden was not OP, you could easily walk out of range/any aoe pretty much one shotted warden in PVE. 90% of mobs have an aoe. Its so much garbage now, with its long delay even with haste, its rare to ever see warden attack a 2nd round. Mesmer DPS was kitten to begin with, warden was the only thing that gave us a chance to be on top.

My warlocks still crit for 8000-12000 each and my GS1 still crits for 2000-2500(last hit), so it’s kinda funny reading all this rant about mesmer’s dps.

Really I dont get it

From patch notes :

- Updated all phantasms and clones available to the mesmer to ensure they activate within their range.
nice fix although clones are now maybe a bit aggressive on random targets lol .. but i guess it fixed more than broke

- Updated mantras to now function underwater as they do above water. They also no longer go on full recharge when interrupted.
awesome fix

- Illusionary Riposte: This skill now functions properly with the Dueling trait Blade Training.
another nice fix for sword users

- Phantasmal Warden: This skill no longer has a 0-second recharge when affected by traits. It now has approximately a 5-second recharge.
expected fix for gamebreaking bug

I never used warden as i found it useless being static / dead fast.
Duelist / Warlock / Mage are ranged so you can summon them out of the heat
Zerk keeps running in and out which gives him some survability + he cripple ennemies in line so he can kite-tank …
lol some difficult champion mobs i soloed i could only because of the 3 zerkers up.
Usually i use any combination of duelist/zerk/warlock, sometimes mage depending on what im doing or facing.

Anyway, to me this patch was a very nice surprise. I do hope they keep fixing things that way.

Cheers

Anyone think that the 5 secs between phantasm skills starts after the skill has been used? So therefore actually displaying the correct 5secs between skills?

Also they have to fix bugs before truly balancing the professions. Or they will end up balancing professions around op/up bugs and when they do fix a bug then it is again out of balance.

Would you prefer to have a 3min cd on iWarden? Cause it was more of a game changer that a few elites in the game. That is what would have happened if they balanced around bugs

I don’t understand why they didn’t fix the warden’s AI.

It needs to actually try and get into attack range with it’s target.

To be honest, if the warden kept moving it might be annoying to use him to break LoS from your attacker.

Yeah, I use the Warden as a projectile blocker, so I rather like the way he doesn’t move much.

Yeah, I’ve actually come to really love how the Warden works (at first I struggled to fit it into my play style).

The only beef I have with him is that he will sometimes appear behind the target instead of in front. Sometimes on the side too, but that’s isn’t as bad.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

I think they overcompensated on it a bit, given its stationary nature.

Sums up my thoughts. It did need to be ‘fixed’, but it was ‘fixed it too much.’

3~ seconds of no-whirl downtime would be perfect if they insist on keeping the Warden stationary/unable to run toward its target.