Guild Wars 2

Hi all, just in case you missed it, the recent state of the game had a few interesting topics. Here is the link:
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/c/2883614

A few highlights:

• Lately there has been fuss in sPvP about tab targeting minions/spirits, meaning players are stating the target mechanism should skip AI opponents. Anet appears to be on board with this but what about a mesmer’s illusions? Anet sides with mesmer and states this change will not apply to us since this is a core mechanic to our class (whew).

• Discussion about mesmers and eles, how they aren’t taken in team comps. Anet is satisfied with the damage dealt by these classes, but inferred damage from other classes would likely be shaved to indirectly bring mesmer and ele damage up, making them more desirable to bring.

• Condition meta concerns and mesmer’s lack of condition removal was discussed. Anet acknowledged this but also stated that mesmer has one of the highest damage evasion and mitigation in the game and to give them more ways to do this would be overpowered. Thus the reason we haven’t seen more condition removal options with our class.

• Overall, Anet plans to “shave” condition damage to make it less potent, but by no means do they plan to do so and bring power back into the meta. They desire there to be a nice balance between the two.

• There will be no skill balancing done in the 9/17 patch but there will be in the 10/1 patch.

Thanks for the summary, been looking for one since I couldn’t watch!

Definitely glad to hear they’re watching us and ‘shaving’ from some other classes to help us out.

Did they mention anything about mesmer build diversity in pvp? It feels like, even when mesmers are present, they’re usually shoved into a very limited set of builds.

skcamow.3527:

• Condition meta concerns and mesmer’s lack of condition removal was discussed. Anet acknowledged this but also stated that mesmer has one of the highest damage evasion and mitigation in the game and to give them more ways to do this would be overpowered. Thus the reason we haven’t seen more condition removal options with our class.

Yes! Arcane thievery now Steal 4boons and transfer 4Condis. Plz Anet make this happen. Also i don’t reject if Anet remove the Evade and Blind part of this skills. Confuse + Blind = Hurt me a lot

Skill balancing just before wvw season starts… I can already hear the moaning

well the problem is though that mesmers will be balanced on the spvp mesmer, which is not what a wvw mesmer needs.we are great in spvp without the condi spam meta, but i play wvw mainly and not the roaming type. i face a lot of zergfights and atm i feel a little weak as all a commander wants me to do is veil his warriors and guardians,portal and tw his golems and massinvis his warriors while casting nullfield for his warriors…
we lack aoe dmg as our clones die before reaching the zerg and phantasms dont last long enough. the only time i felt strong was during glam times….but since the nerf we havent gotten much mutitarget skills back….

they also mentioned buffing warrior shouts…..again great for spvp, terrible for wvw
they wanna buff staff ele=terrible for wvw
im also worried about our condition builds, they are already not that great compared to other classes….

lets hope we get new tools to play with, so we arent forced into phantasm/shatter builds that arent that great in wvw.

absolutely agree on point 3 and is the reason why i think mesmers shouldn’t be getting any buffs. A balanced class has its weaknesses and speed/condi removal is two of them.

Nuka Cola.8520:

absolutely agree on point 3 and is the reason why i think mesmers shouldn’t be getting any buffs. A balanced class has its weaknesses and speed/condi removal is two of them.

I completely agree! When i fight a necro on any spec with blink and a staff, mobility is literally the only thing keeping me alive. 1 mistake and im pretty much kittened though :/.

Or when they use that signet of spite, blegh. When a necro uses signet of spite i feel exactly the same way i felt back in the beta when a warrior bull rush + 100Bed me: “Oh, what’s happening?”

Even with my power lokc i fail to interupt it :P.

Mobility is our best tool to avoid consiion spam, but thats not the problem…

1. New players cant use mobility as potent as some of us can.
   A good fix is to buff our existing condition removal, instead of adding new ones. Like nullfield: ‘remove 1 condition from yourself when cast, then continue as normal’.
   The cleansing inscription trait should be adept, so its much easier to get. Maybe also remove 2 instead of 1 condition.
   Change mender’s purity to not have an internal CD, and make it activate when you charge the mantra ab activate power return.

1. Conquest
   Seriously. Our most important ways of mitigation is mobility, while in conquest you have to stand still in a circle. These things do not mix! especially with engi grenade spam, necro consition spam, going there is just suicide.
   Having bunkers stand in a circle is pretty boring, it would be funner if everyone was vilnerable to damage and can deal damage, but thats another discussion.

I actually do have a suggestion, but it would change alot of mechanics (i think), but still stay true to the ‘capture an objective’ thing.
For example the keep in forewt of nifhel. Currently theres only a small circle in a pretty big area. Simply make bigger circles around it. What this does is, everyone standing on he keep will contest it, but the one closest to the centre will capture it quicker.

Example: the keep has 5 circles, and needs a total of 120 points to be captured.

• The middle point gives 12 per second.
• the next gives 10
• the 3rd gives 8
• the 4th tives 6
  The 5th gives 4.

Now, there is a blue warrior in the middle circle, which gives 12 per second. And theres a red engi standing in the upper area throwing grenades, giving 4 per second.
12-4=8 points go toward team blue per second, which means it takes 120/8=15 seconds for blue to capture it.

An example for a 5th circle at the keep, are the upper areas behind it, and standing just on the staircase in the lower area.
The middle circle would be what we currently have.

Only the closest to the middle of a team counts. So having 1 member in 12 points and 1 member in 10 points will only give 12 per second.

This would make bunkers sill usefull to have, but it would give others more room to use mobility.
Thoughts?

I’d like confusion to be un-nerfed in WvW again, right now most builds consist of phantasm specs/shatters, chaos armour also needs it’s ICD removed so that you can punish your enemies by putting conditions on them if they decide to whack you, while gaining well needed boons in return.

if they do this, i’ll probably dust off my Scepter/Pistol and staff to become a confusion duellist once more

@xsquared
There are a lot of good Confusion builds already out there, many that stack a lot of confusion easily. I know I run Scepter/Torch and Sword/Pistol, easily takes down any enemy including necroes. 20/20/30/0/0

The small buff i’d like to see on mesmer is Illusionary Retribution to inflict 5sec of confusion instead of 3. If you look at confusion duration skills on all classes/runes its always 5sec or more. Why are we the class that is supposed to be the master of confusion inflict it for almost 50% less duration? This needs to be done at least in pve and spvp (i exclude wvw because with food buffs its acceptable as is). Confusion is far from op in spvp and this could be a great mini buff to mesmers.

The Prestige from Torch really needs to blast on use and not when you come out of stealth. The block mechanism for applying Torment doesn’t make sense. We need a way to apply it (tied to 3rd attack on Scepter 1 for instance).

Scepter Torch is just too weak through my point of view.

selan.8354:

well the problem is though that mesmers will be balanced on the spvp mesmer, which is not what a wvw mesmer needs.we are great in spvp without the condi spam meta, but i play wvw mainly and not the roaming type. i face a lot of zergfights and atm i feel a little weak as all a commander wants me to do is veil his warriors and guardians,portal and tw his golems and massinvis his warriors while casting nullfield for his warriors…
we lack aoe dmg as our clones die before reaching the zerg and phantasms dont last long enough. the only time i felt strong was during glam times….but since the nerf we havent gotten much mutitarget skills back….

they also mentioned buffing warrior shouts…..again great for spvp, terrible for wvw
they wanna buff staff ele=terrible for wvw
im also worried about our condition builds, they are already not that great compared to other classes….

lets hope we get new tools to play with, so we arent forced into phantasm/shatter builds that arent that great in wvw.

yes, I feel your pain
I’m taking the current meta and the last two unlucky matchups as an excuse to test new builds

(sadly, none of them is actually working better than my previous one)

Menaka.5092:

selan.8354:

well the problem is though that mesmers will be balanced on the spvp mesmer, which is not what a wvw mesmer needs.we are great in spvp without the condi spam meta, but i play wvw mainly and not the roaming type. i face a lot of zergfights and atm i feel a little weak as all a commander wants me to do is veil his warriors and guardians,portal and tw his golems and massinvis his warriors while casting nullfield for his warriors…
we lack aoe dmg as our clones die before reaching the zerg and phantasms dont last long enough. the only time i felt strong was during glam times….but since the nerf we havent gotten much mutitarget skills back….

they also mentioned buffing warrior shouts…..again great for spvp, terrible for wvw
they wanna buff staff ele=terrible for wvw
im also worried about our condition builds, they are already not that great compared to other classes….

lets hope we get new tools to play with, so we arent forced into phantasm/shatter builds that arent that great in wvw.

yes, I feel your pain
I’m taking the current meta and the last two unlucky matchups as an excuse to test new builds

(sadly, none of them is actually working better than my previous one)

yeah been working with kylias triforce build for a while as it grants more protection, retal, distortion and reflection, but this week i went back to glam with perplexity, as get to tag a little better, but changed the focus to reflect projectiles…at least i can use veil offensively aswell with that. too bad that i cant have my distortion trait with that so i get at least a little protection in arrowcart rains,mass aoe and necromarks spam meta.
i wish anet would fix wvw balance already and give mesmers and rangers a buff at the right places, so we can join the fun. whenever a commander asks mesmers to m up in chat for golem portals it around 3-5 out of 30+ people. the rest all plays warriors,necros and guardians. this statistic should tell anet that something is very very wrong with wvw balance.

While I can understand that condition meta in pvp/wvw is gonna be “shaved” a bit, I’m worried about how it would affect in pve/dungeons. Condition builds are already inferior to direct damage builds and sadly, not all of our weapons can be flexible to work with power and condition builds (i.e. – scepter and torch more toward condition damage while greatsword and OH sword are more toward power).

well they shouldnt shave all condition builds anyways. our condition builds are still pretty weak compared to necros and thieves!