Guild Wars 2

In a recent big patch, Thieves’ Revealed debuff got increased from 3s to 4s, and there was much QQ about how it broke their flow and rotations. ANet realized this was true, made the profession less fun, recanted, and set it back to 3s.

The incoming Illusionists Celerity nerf does something similar to all Mesmer builds except Illusionary Persona Shatter builds – breaks flow, makes all non-IP Shatter builds less fun, hurts Phantasm uptime.

I’m wondering if ANet can’t be persuaded this is a similar situation to the Thief Reveal nerf and un-nerf, and perhaps find a better way to nerf Mesmer dps without nerfing Illusion cooldowns, or whatever they were going for with this IC nerf.

The only alternative I could see – and which I prefer – is to outright remove the trait.
Then look at Illusion CD accordingly.

But honestly, I’d rather have my illusions with more HP by default (and then maybe reduce the signet). Shouldn’t be that squishy that I need such short CDs. For shatter-fodder I can dodge2clone, anyhow.

Completely agree. If IC was being treated as a base ability, so necessary every build was taking it, the solution isn’t to move it out of reach of all but one build, it’s to get rid of it then compensate, either by partially or fully building it into the class, or increasing illusion heath/armor, or drastically reducing their attack cd’s or something.

Carighan.6758:

The only alternative I could see – and which I prefer – is to outright remove the trait.
Then look at Illusion CD accordingly.

But honestly, I’d rather have my illusions with more HP by default (and then maybe reduce the signet). Shouldn’t be that squishy that I need such short CDs. For shatter-fodder I can dodge2clone, anyhow.

200% health on the signet is a little cuhrazy, if anything, Id like to see both the signet and Persisting Images sit at a 100% buff, then have the base hp raised by 25%.
That way you can still get the same HP illusions, you just have to invest a little more in it, plus the baseline becomes less AWFUL.

I think ArenaNet should try moving IC to a Master Adept Trait or Minor/Master Master Trait instead of pushing it all the way to Grandmaster first.

The current change is too big for a lot of players.

I am not sure what they’re intent was with the nerf. The only thing that was understood was that IC was taken by about every Mesmer build out there. If that was the problem then it spoke to the necessity to have access to clones for the class to work. This is similar to how people had a lot of issues with the Mesmer in PVE at launch because Phantasms were behaving slowly at summons, making them often useless. Any trait that supplied Phantasms with a boon made them attack immediately upon summons. When this was fixed, Phantasms went back to the dreaded pause before attacking behavior and it screwed up the entire playstyle.

It was realized that for the Mesmer to actually function properly, it needed the quicker Phantasm attack behavior and this was subsequently patched in.

Here, if the intent was to knock down Phantasm build damage a bit, then they kind of overshot the goal. Illusionist’s Celerity was a part of Mesmer functionality, from everything to their control to their survival. Removing it from all but IP Shatter builds means every other build has less survival and control accessibility. It’s not the Phantasm CDs that hurt, but the reduced acccess to iLeap/snare, Staff Feigned Retreat escape, and block skills.

If those weren’t intended to be hurt then changing the trait to only affecting clone-producing skills would lower Phantasm damage and not hurt class functionality. If limiting all those functions was the aim then that’s pretty drastic.

Just to take a different look at the class: One of the things the Mesmer lacks compared to other classes is finishers. They really only have leap and projectile finisher, but truthfully only have constant access to leap. The IC change further reduces every Mesmer player’s access to finishers, for all those leaps are tied to clone creation.

ArenaNerf strikes again.

it happened only for thieves.

As you can see anything endangering thief get constantly nerfed into oblivion.

rtl, D/D ele, Confusion, phantasms, into the void, guardians armor via boon damage…

You should ve noticed a pattern already…..
Any counter to thief has to disappear from the game.

LordByron.8369:

Any counter to thief has to disappear from the game.

This is a extemely childish way of seeing the current balance, even if nonsensical and probably made by gorillas.

AndrewSX.3794:

LordByron.8369:

Any counter to thief has to disappear from the game.

This is a extemely childish way of seeing the current balance, even if nonsensical and probably made by gorillas.

that because you don t read devs on thief forum…..
Also is quite easy to have balance flaws when you are biased and afaik there is a tradition on that since gw1

LordByron.8369:

it happened only for thieves.

As you can see anything endangering thief get constantly nerfed into oblivion.

rtl, D/D ele, Confusion, phantasms, into the void, guardians armor via boon damage…

You should ve noticed a pattern already…..
Any counter to thief has to disappear from the game.

Oh my god you’re right. It’s true.
I think the next gw2 expansion is gonna be called Thief War in which everyone is a thief and can use either A> heartseeker B> backstab and has perma stealth.

It was a slightly different situation for Thieves, though I can see some similarities.

I’m in the camp that says to just get rid of IC and adjust Illusion CDs accordingly, it’s too potent when it’s a trait that is guaranteed to effect at least 40% of your weapon skills.

They don’t have to do a flat 20% reduction across the board, some skills don’t need it really, but the super long CD phantasms could use a reduction in CD. Plus, that gives them the opportunity to add in a new trait.

I think the trait should still exist, and remain in the Illusions tree.

However if left at 20% it should be a Major trait (either at Master or Adept level), like all other cooldown traits.

On the other hand it could be reduced to 10%, give us back 10% on the skills as standard, and keep it as either a Minor or Major trait.

At the same time, all weapon skill cooldowns should be looked at and some reduced (for example iMage).

I like the idea of reducing all Illusion cool downs by 10% and then making Illusionist’s Celerity a 10% reduction instead, making it so that not selecting the trait isn’t as integral to so many Mesmer builds.

I like the idea of removing the trait all together and just making all Illusions have a 20% faster recast as a freebie too.

kurtosis.9526:

In a recent big patch, Thieves’ Revealed debuff got increased from 3s to 4s, and there was much QQ about how it broke their flow and rotations. ANet realized this was true, made the profession less fun, recanted, and set it back to 3s.

The incoming Illusionists Celerity nerf does something similar to all Mesmer builds except Illusionary Persona Shatter builds – breaks flow, makes all non-IP Shatter builds less fun, hurts Phantasm uptime.

I’m wondering if ANet can’t be persuaded this is a similar situation to the Thief Reveal nerf and un-nerf, and perhaps find a better way to nerf Mesmer dps without nerfing Illusion cooldowns, or whatever they were going for with this IC nerf.

Get the story straight please…

Reveal was nerf to 4 secs. They reverted it for PvE and WvW only.

The Reveal debuff is still 4 sec in PVP.

/thread

The reason it was so used in so many builds is because “Shattering” is the Mesmer Mechanic! Those F1-F4 keys don’t do squat unless you have an illusion to shatter. That is also why Deceptive Evasions is used in so many builds. Our mechanic is built around shattering illusions. The faster we can generate illusions, the better we do our job!

So why have a trait that increases all illusion generation deep in one trait line. By doing so, your basically making every Non-Illusion Mesmer less efficient. Because they cannot use their mechanic as often/easily as an Illusion Mesmer.

Truth be told, IC probably should have never existed in the first place. Illusion generation should of remained tied to the weapons and then traits to improve those weapons located in the appropriate trait line.

But Illusions doesn’t have any weapon traits, so it got IC. imho. And thats probably the reasoning for pushing it deep into Illusions, since Illusions doesn’t have any weapon reduce cooldown traits.

the real story is that a major nerf was planned…don t remember if it was 6 seconds or what

Then was reverted prior release to the 4 seconds stuff (possibly thinking that nobody would complain)

Finally even that minor nerf was revertet for PvE (ok) and www (why on earth?)