Guild Wars 2

Now that it’s been revealed that new conditions/boons/status effects are making their way into the game, I’m expecting a balance patch to sweep through all classes and incorporate these abilities. Me Games Ma threw up a thread on the overall possible impact on Mesmer, but I wanted to take a closer look at how this’ll effect lockdown Mesmer specifically.

SLOW
Slow lowers attack rate, not movement speed. As a sort of inverse to quickness (which is also receiving a visual boost) this condition is going to be excellent for lockdown Mesmer, making it significantly easier to interrupt skills. But at the same time it does scare me.

• What if they change Chaotic Interruption to apply Slow rather than Immobilize? ( Slow & Either Chill/Blind)

Like Me Games Ma, I do feel that Chaos Storm or Chaos Armor will grant/inflict Slow and Resistance. From a lockdown perspective slow does seem great, and I’m nearly positive Chronomancer will have multiple applications of this new condition. In fact, even though they mentioned it with the debut of the Revenant, I’m fairly certain this condition was made for the Chronomancer. I would like to see some reworks to some skills, perhaps, Furious Interruption, Wastrel’s Punishment, even Confounding Suggestions could benefit.

TAUNT
Taunt locks out the opponent’s skill bar and forces them to attack whatever taunted them with autoattacks. I don’t see us getting very many ways to apply this, as I really think this is going to go moreso to Necros, Warriors, Ranger pets, Revenant and Guardian. Some ideas do come to mind though, remember that shield phantasm I was hype about?

• Shield could create a Phantasm with a warhorn that taunts all nearby foes into attacking it, making it easier to catch people in Chronomancer’s status AoEs. Why warhorn? Because Phantasms do not always have weapons matching the one used to summon it. (iMage uses scepter, iWarlock uses scepter, iDisenchanter uses scepter, iWarden uses axes)

This is another nice lockdown ability, and could work beautifully combined with slow and Chaotic Interruption. Forced to spam auto while running into an AoE slow field? Glorious.

RESISTANCE
Ugh. Though having to deal with Stability was annoying? Now CI Mesmer have to strip Stab AND Resistance. This is a blessing and a curse, as boonstripping will now be even MORE important, which makes Mesmer more valuable, but the addition of Resistance offers another way to stuff Chaotic Interruption’s immobilize + random condi. Hell, it even will stuff Chronomancer’s slow application! I don’t think we will have very many ways to gain resistance and see it more as a hurdle to leap, but I do hope that this opens up opportunities for some reworks:

• iMage: Applies Confusion to Enemies & Resistance to allies
• Disruptors Sustainment: Reworked to apply AoE Resistance on interrupt (5s ICD)

I dunno about you, but I’m pretty excited for the possibilities these new effects will open up. What’s interesting is that Taunt is NOT a condi, but rather a status effect like daze/stun/knockback. It can be cleansed like fear, however, but I’m curious to know if it will work through the Resistance boon. What’re your thoughts?

On the topic of resistance,

Cant remember off the top of my head but does the current version of the Warrior’s rather Unbalanced Stance allow for Daze’s and stuns etc.. to take effect? or Are you met with the Unsatisfying “Immune”?

I only ask because that seems to be what Anet is basing this off of and will likely just be Copy/Pasting in Boon Form.

Swish.2463:

On the topic of resistance,

Cant remember off the top of my head but does the current version of the Warrior’s rather Unbalanced Stance allow for Daze’s and stuns etc.. to take effect? or Are you met with the Unsatisfying “Immune”?

I only ask because that seems to be what Anet is basing this off of and will likely just be Copy/Pasting in Boon Form.

Balanced Stance literally grants Stability.
Endure Pain can be interrupted, but takes no damage.

Not balanced stance, the conditions cannot be applied one, bezerkers

Yeah that can still be hit with daze/stuns.

“We’ve also improved both quickness and slow. Currently, quickness will cause your cast bar to cut out early. With the improvement, your skill cast bar will smoothly update when you gain quickness or slow, even during the middle of using a skill.”

I’m surprised that I haven’t seen anyone comment on this. Quickness has never worked that great with most mesmer builds as it doesn’t affect our burst/phantasms much.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Furious_Interruption
That sucks because it currently forces you to wait for an interrupt before charging a mantra. With this change, you can interrupt while charging a mantra for a “boost” mid charge.
With a few more chronomancer traits that maybe give alternative forms of quickness this could make mantra builds a lot less tedious. You would be forced to take 2 charges per matra with that GM trait but idk.. like some kind of interrupt mantra healer with that terrible +1000 HP trait >_>

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• iMage: Applies Confusion to Enemies & Resistance to allies
• Disruptors Sustainment: Reworked to apply AoE Resistance on interrupt (5s ICD)

I’m not a fan of the iMage idea for two reasons:

• Uptime in 1vs1 scenarios would be too high.
• Traited Torch already cleanses conditions. So why even more anti-condi?

Wait… third reason. Condi PU builds.

The suggestion for DS sounds very interesting, though.

I don’t know why some people here would rather take a daze instead of a taunt.
IMO the CC ranking goes like this:
Pull/Push/Knockdown/Stun/…>Taunt>Daze
The thing about taunt is that it FORCES movement. You won’t be able to do anything as to walk towards your target (inversed fear) which means that you also won’t be able to dodge if taunted. I say that this effect is far better that daze because you an controll where your enemy is moving to. With a mere daze he’s just unable to use skills but still has free decision od movement (which inlcudes dodges).

Taunt is better than daze (i don’t care how many daze related skills we have).

Xaylin.1860:

I’m not a fan of the iMage idea for two reasons:

• Uptime in 1vs1 scenarios would be too high.
• Traited Torch already cleanses conditions. So why even more anti-condi?

Wait… third reason. Condi PU builds.

Xaylin — 1 : 0 — Chaos Archeangle and Me Games Ma

Doubt the mesmer will get taunt, if they do it will likely be a very long CD.

Frankly it just doesn’t seem like something a master of mis-direction would be using.

Granted if the shield gives the mesmer a ton of survivability this may not be the case.

Me Games Ma.8426:

I don’t know why some people here would rather take a daze instead of a taunt.
IMO the CC ranking goes like this:
Pull/Push/Knockdown/Stun/…>Taunt>Daze
The thing about taunt is that it FORCES movement. You won’t be able to do anything as to walk towards your target (inversed fear) which means that you also won’t be able to dodge if taunted. I say that this effect is far better that daze because you an controll where your enemy is moving to. With a mere daze he’s just unable to use skills but still has free decision od movement (which inlcudes dodges).

Taunt is better than daze (i don’t care how many daze related skills we have).

Taunt also forces them to use their auto attack.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• What if they change Chaotic Interruption to apply Slow rather than Immobilize? ( Slow & Either Chill/Blind)

As in the other thread – the suggestion was to replace the rng cripple with slow, not to replace the immobilise.

I think in that case it would be awesome as cripple is pretty useless on CI.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Me Games Ma.8426:

I don’t know why some people here would rather take a daze instead of a taunt.
IMO the CC ranking goes like this:
Pull/Push/Knockdown/Stun/…>Taunt>Daze
The thing about taunt is that it FORCES movement. You won’t be able to do anything as to walk towards your target (inversed fear) which means that you also won’t be able to dodge if taunted. I say that this effect is far better that daze because you an controll where your enemy is moving to. With a mere daze he’s just unable to use skills but still has free decision od movement (which inlcudes dodges).

Taunt is better than daze (i don’t care how many daze related skills we have).

Taunt also forces them to use their auto attack.

Mesmers have confusion. Forcing them to autoattaak is just another reason why we benefit more from this than from dazes.

Taunt vs Thieves, thoughts, thoughts? Also, would combining slow, cripple, and frozen seem a tad overkill?

I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a way to apply Taunt, and if we do it will be in some weird out-of-the-way form.

Slow vs Thieves, however, will be glorious. If the grandmasters in the Chronomancer tree are good enough, I’m going 2/6/0/0/0/6 for sure.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a way to apply Taunt, and if we do it will be in some weird out-of-the-way form.

Slow vs Thieves, however, will be glorious. If the grandmasters in the Chronomancer tree are good enough, I’m going 2/6/0/0/0/6 for sure.

Don’t think it will be an actual tree added to the current skill trees.

I think it will be something as a side that lets you choose between new traits.

I say this because all of the existing trait lines also grant stat bonuses & every stat already has a line.
If they created a new one that had stat bonuses as well it could be horrible for balance. (imagine a thief being able to dip into power, precision, condi damage or ferocity twice.)

Then again I could be wrong.

Duck touched on it above, but with the addition of slow, it stands to reason that we’ll see
some love for quickness across the board to combat it. Chronomancer will be certain to have some new capabilities, but I could see some spices of quickness added to other classes. Wouldn’t be surprised to see enhancements to pre-existing skills/traits as well.

If we Mesmers/Chronomancers get access to slow I will definetly try to create a build with max slow duration =)

Chaos Archangel.5071:

What’s interesting is that Taunt is NOT a condi, but rather a status effect like daze/stun/knockback. It can be cleansed like fear, however, but I’m curious to know if it will work through the Resistance boon. What’re your thoughts?

This sounds confusing… Fear is a condition, so it would be countered by Resistance.
If Taunt is NOT a condition, then I would think it would be countered by Stability and cleansed with a stun removal instead of condi removal.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a way to apply Taunt, and if we do it will be in some weird out-of-the-way form.

Slow vs Thieves, however, will be glorious. If the grandmasters in the Chronomancer tree are good enough, I’m going 2/6/0/0/0/6 for sure.

Don’t think it will be an actual tree added to the current skill trees.

I think it will be something as a side that lets you choose between new traits.

I say this because all of the existing trait lines also grant stat bonuses & every stat already has a line.
If they created a new one that had stat bonuses as well it could be horrible for balance. (imagine a thief being able to dip into power, precision, condi damage or ferocity twice.)

Then again I could be wrong.

Maybe the new traitline takes the place of a old one (same stats, different minor/major traits).

Menaka.5092:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a way to apply Taunt, and if we do it will be in some weird out-of-the-way form.

Slow vs Thieves, however, will be glorious. If the grandmasters in the Chronomancer tree are good enough, I’m going 2/6/0/0/0/6 for sure.

Don’t think it will be an actual tree added to the current skill trees.

I think it will be something as a side that lets you choose between new traits.

I say this because all of the existing trait lines also grant stat bonuses & every stat already has a line.
If they created a new one that had stat bonuses as well it could be horrible for balance. (imagine a thief being able to dip into power, precision, condi damage or ferocity twice.)

Then again I could be wrong.

Maybe the new traitline takes the place of a old one (same stats, different minor/major traits).

Eh don’t think so.

The way they made it sound, it sounds like something completely new that you unlock after level 80.
Having it be in the regular trait lines would mean you had access to it leveling up.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Menaka.5092:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a way to apply Taunt, and if we do it will be in some weird out-of-the-way form.

Slow vs Thieves, however, will be glorious. If the grandmasters in the Chronomancer tree are good enough, I’m going 2/6/0/0/0/6 for sure.

Don’t think it will be an actual tree added to the current skill trees.

I think it will be something as a side that lets you choose between new traits.

I say this because all of the existing trait lines also grant stat bonuses & every stat already has a line.
If they created a new one that had stat bonuses as well it could be horrible for balance. (imagine a thief being able to dip into power, precision, condi damage or ferocity twice.)

Then again I could be wrong.

Maybe the new traitline takes the place of a old one (same stats, different minor/major traits).

Eh don’t think so.

The way they made it sound, it sounds like something completely new that you unlock after level 80.
Having it be in the regular trait lines would mean you had access to it leveling up.

From what I understood about the whole specialization thing, it seems like something you can activate/deactivate while off-combat that swaps out a lot of your stuff (utilities, traits, class mechanics); it would make sense to swap a traitline out when you are using the specialization and swap the “normal” one in when you are not using it.