Guild Wars 2

So there is about to be a patch and I thought I would throw out what I think is working and what isn’t for Mesmer in PvP. There are a lot of complaints about us (not as much as thieves) and some of them are justified — some are not.

I’ll start with justified.

(1) Moa has just got to go or be substantially nerfed. Imagine an “I win” button that was on a 5 minute cooldown. No one would ever want that in the game even though it had a long cooldown. So the long-ish cooldown of moa does not justify its power. Either nerf it to a shorter duration or make the attack abilities good enough that someone who knows what they are doing can kick butt with it. Do not increase the cool down because that doesn’t really help.

(2) To the extent that the stealth rendering bug is affecting us that has to go too.

(3) We need our clones to be normalized in terms of effects — what I mean is that scepter clones are useless and staff and sword clones are quite powerful. And I hate to say it but the latter two need a bit of a nerd and the former a buff. I think ANet might want to consider just going back to the time when clones did some amount of damage but do not proc WoC or bleeds. This might be an unpopular suggestion and it is the one I am least sure about. What I am sure about is that scepter clones need a big buff because scepter in PvP is lame.

(4) iBeserker LoS has got to be fixed. It is dumb the way it is and people are right to complain about it.

(5) I think iDuelist could possibly use a damage nerf — iWarlock can’t burst much without conditions on the target and iBeserker is not out of wack. iWarden is huge but so hard to land. iSwordsman right on target.

(6) I think blurred frenzy annoys the crap out of other players — maybe a cd nerf is in order? This is another one I am not too sure about.

Now, unjustified complaints come from people who get rolled by mesmers but are pretty non-specific about why. Two points.

(a) our damage is not out of proportion to other classes at all (except maybe iDuelist)
(b) tons of people still have not figured out how to “spot the real mesmer” which is trivial unless the real mesmer stands still and only auto attacks. I fight people every day in sPvP who have no clue which one I am.

Some other buffs I think have to happen.

(i) GS 3 is just awful and useless

(ii) iMage is a joke and makes Torch useless even though the prestige is fun

(iii) The cooldown nerfs on staff make it a lot less fun because two of your abilities are not up for large chunks of time. That said I don’t know of a good solution

Don’t know enough to say about mantras except that making them into a utility ability just means sacrificing so much (Mirror Image, Decoy, Portal, Signet). Long term they should add a one-hand and an off-hand weapon that both use mantras and then if people want to trait into the benefits they can. But for now I think mantras are kind of a dead zone (I have seen a mesmer specced for mantras precisely once and thought it was cool in a novelty sense).

I was about to type out a response to you for every point…. But it’s really obvious that you don’t understand the Mesmer class.

Dedicate some more time to it before asking for nerfs.

Its fairly obvious mesmer isnt your main and you clearly play sword/sword staff and probably some phantasms build. You’re doing it wrong.

Wopps, did just what Nero is even if he is kinda my counterpart as he do deep tPvP and I do deep wvwvw. My answer is deleted and now I just say see Neros post.

Agreed with 1-4
Disagree with 5
Unsure about 6

Agree with (i) and (ii)
Disagree on (iii)

Also feel scepter is still a touch too weak.

For the critics: Mesmer is my main. I play mostly a shatter focused staff/GS build but have also played Scepter/Pistol / GS and Scepter/Torch / GS as well as Sword/Sword / GS.

I have virtually only played Mesmer since BWE3.

Alanis, I can see your point on 5 and should have noted that it is another one I put in the unsure category. Glad to see that rational other mesmers see how moa and iBeserker LOS are big problems.

Blurred frenzy I don’t have a good handle on whether it is fine or not. It sure does seem to bother other players, which suggests to me the ability to get distortion so much through shatter and BF is annoying.

Did not mean to merge my mantra musings with my suggestion of an issue with staff with Chaos Storm and Chaos Armor on such long cds now. But as I said, I’m not sure of a solution. I switched away from staff after the cd nerf and went back because Phase Retreat is just too good to not have.

Higginbotham.9562:

(1) Moa has just got to go or be substantially nerfed. Imagine an “I win” button that was on a 5 minute cooldown. No one would ever want that in the game even though it had a long cooldown. So the long-ish cooldown of moa does not justify its power. Either nerf it to a shorter duration or make the attack abilities good enough that someone who knows what they are doing can kick butt with it. Do not increase the cool down because that doesn’t really help.

so I imagine your “iwin” button (target instantly goes to downed state, can be blocked, evaded, 5m cooldown), imo it would not be op. wow you got one target down, match won? don’t think so. moa is even less threatening with its long cast animation and the possibility to escape while moaed.
I play mesmer tpvp only and don’t use moa because it sucks compared to time warp in 9/10 situations

1. Don’t care. Overall, a shorter cooldown for a shorter effect (with a slightly shorter cast time) makes sense overall. I might even use it then, sometimes. Maybe. … not. Maybe if I did super-small-scale tPvP where 1v1s actually matter.

2. Yes, universal fix.

3. Disagree on Staff/Sword clone nerfs. Don’t see any need for that. Scepter clones need buffs for sure though.

4. Ambivalent. iB has a significantly smaller AOE than other class AOEs, but has the benefit of higher contact due to the lack of direct LOS. Personally I think too much siege lasts too long in WvW in general, so I think that other anti-siege mechanisms need to be added / adjusted before iB is changed, if it is changed. Overall I think iB is currently “balanced”, even though the exact mechanic is not consistent with other phantasms. While fixing the LOS would be consistent, I feel that iB would need a buff to compensate, and the rest of the kit doesn’t need a direct potency buff.

5. Lol, no. iD doesn’t do “more” damage than other phantasms, so I don’t see why it needs a nerf. The only thing that needs fixing is the trait bug for 100% combo finishers.

6. No. Lots of things annoy lots of players. Blurred Frenzy is working as intended. I wouldn’t mind an overpowering damage buff on it if it lost the evasion / had its cooldown increased though … lulzz. No reason to fix what isn’t broken.

a. Shrug.
b. Shrug. Star/Commander icons need to be fixed. ANet says it’s a known issue. Shrug.
i. GS3 is mostly fine. Boon shearing is a wonderful thing, haven’t you heard? It will not get directly buffed because it does as much DPS as a full-distance Spatial Surge along with the AOE and boon strip. If it is buffed, some aspect will be nerfed.
ii. Yes, iMage is basically ANet trolling Mesmers.
iii. Staff is fine, don’t care. Perhaps nerf the cooldown on Storm slightly more and increase it to 4 ticks.
iiii. Mantras are relatively fine.

1) I dont care either way about moa. I’ve never used it.
2) You would think there’s no real lag in sPvP. But the game most so fast good thiefs are globaling me before they render. If mes and do this to or if out cloaking / portal effects are out of whack, I hope it gets looked at.
3) You have to look at the whole package. Staff clones are strong, but their the overall staff dps is low.
4) agreed.

I can spot the real mesmer easy in WvW, but in sPvP – not at all. LoS, speed the game plays, and the fact that you’re really dying to an invisible thief rather than any of the “mesmers”.

I try do play the same game on my mesmer as others play on me. Let the enemy play whack-a-clone while my friends kill them.

As for Moa, I’d prefer removal. It just doesn’t extend from a class ability, we don’t do polymorphs. :P

As a replacement idea, keeping the disabling aspect in mind:

House of Glass
150s CD, 10s duration, instant (and without any animation or effect!)
The target’s reality becomes an illusion. After 10s, any damage, healing or other effect caused by the target will be retroactively erased. However, if you or the target are killed during these 10 seconds, the illusion merges with reality, and nothing will be undone.

This would be a bit of a quirky thing. It never stops the target from doing damage or healing someone. And as long as they finish the job in those 10s, all dandy. Ofc, if they get you onto the ground and are 95% through their finisher, 10s are up, you’re back on your feet with full health because, well, nothing of it happened. :P
Likewise, though all healing caused is undone after 10s, maybe by then the enemy is in a better position to mitigate the incoming burst of damage. Or maybe they aren’t, and the “shock” of rerolling 10s causes them to fumble up.

How about just make it a 4s Daze.

Edit: With lots of butterflies.

1) Toss up, up for debate. I can see it on both sides.

2) well then, that’s a bug and not intended.

3) clones all do pretty much no damage, i dont see why you think some are weak and some aren’t unless you’re mixing them up with phantasms. Phantasms is supposed to be for dps, clones are meant to be meat shields and to be shattered. that’s why it’s far easier and faster to pump out clones like a factory rather than phantasms.

4)it does a charge when it spawns. LoS is a dynamic part in games. why should this be an exception?

5)iduelist is high burst yes, but with a long wait time inbetween. it’s still good damage though. Iwarlock I find to be better for PvE boss fights in dungeons with a condition build since it’s on staff.

6)blurred frenzy is fine. In fact it halts you in place and you can’t move while you’re swinging your sword like a mad man. so if you’re getting hit by it then move, cause the mesmer roots themself in place pretty much while using it. (though i like to use pistol 5 to stun people and then clone swap/blink to them to blurred frenzy them while stunned, but thats using actual tactics to make opportunities)

a)not sure if you mean mesmer damage as a whole or just blurred frenzy. if just blurred frenzy see above. If mesmer damage as a whole, our damage is actually a wet noodle compared to other classes (like warrior, necro, thief, ele)

b)if they can’t spot a clone that’s their own incompetency. clones stand still pretty much and don’t run around like a player. clones spam the number 1 ability, so if you cast another animation its easy to tell. clones should copy the animations you cast imo. you can set a target on the mesmer above their head, imo it should clear targets when you summon a clone, but at least it does clear the target on you if you stealth. clones health bars dont resemble yours at all which they should. clones dont show the exploration star by their name if you have one so thats another obvious thing.

i) I think it could use a slight buff, maybe a wider aoe range and slightly more damage. keep the 1 boon rip the same though.

ii) i think it should cast confusion a little more often, just enough to help sustain your confusion stacks to be up on a target if you happen to be a confusion spam build and you arent taking a short break from pumping confusion (so it will fall off if you arent dpsing constantly) but not enough if you arent a confusion spam build, cause they fall off pretty easily.

iii)i can agree with this

1. Can’t see this as a problem – The majority of Mesmers don’t even use Moa in the first place, because they all seem to universally agree that in any kind of team aspect, it relatively sucks. Long CD, short effect, Time Warp and Mass Invisibility are better in every regard that a 10s removal of a single unit. Only people I really hear kitten about this are the people who actually got Moa’d.

To reiterate, one person out of an entire team, in PvP where it is impossible to not play it without a team of some sort, complained because they were taken out. The rest of the team did not see this as a crippling downside, the one player QQ’d over being made to sit in time out.

2. This isn’t really a mesmer adjustment as it is an overall game bug fix – No matter what profession you are, this shouldn’t happen. I think everyone agrees on that.

3. Staff and Sword are also quite powerful weapons. The Scepter is not – even with the recent (lol-worthy) buff it received. Without specifically building around the scepter, it is almost universally agreed to be the single worst weapon the Mesmer has, and fixing its clones would be a nice start to changing that – but nerfing the rest of our clones because scepter isn’t making the cut seems silly. Why bring everything down to the worst common denominator, when you could just bring up the worst common denominator to “not suicidally bad”?

4. So, I was playing my thief alt, right? I can fire AoEs behind me as I run – and the arrows on my Shortbow skills arch, making them partially ignore LoS as well. Not to the extent of iZerker, but it’s still there. I’m pretty sure all professions have -something- that ignores LoS, otherwise how do they expect us to run Anti-siege? Want Mesmer to toss up Chaos Storm once every 45 seconds onto the edge of a wall?

Course, you specifically mention this is sPvP Mesmer – So I get the feeling you aren’t really including WvW functionality anywhere in this post. I can see iZerker being a kitten when you don’t have a bigass wall to hide on, but this comes down to a catch22: Fix LoS and remove pretty much all Mesmer anti-siege contribution? Or leave LoS like it is and let people in sPvP start realizing they need to target and kill the flimsy paper-thin phantasm that stands in one place for 2-3 seconds before attacking once?

5. iDuelist is meant to be a high-damage 1v1 phantasm. hence “Duelist”. And even then, it only really shines if you’re running Prec/SI build due to the bleed stacks. It’s attacks are telegraphed loudly, can be LoS’d to avoid, and over half of it’s damage can be dodged entirely. Also, like iZerker, it’s slow to attack, and does nothing but stand around before and after. It’s flimsy.

Just because people don’t choose to kill the Phantasms, which are generally massive damage boosting turrets the mesmers throw out, doesn’t mean they need to be nerfed. It means people need to start evaluating whether they really want to leave the massive damage boosting turrets alive, or fight Mesmers where they have a bunch set up.

6. You know what annoys other players? Heartseeker. and Backstab. and Hundred Blades. and Ranger AoE in WvW. and Ranger auto-attack speed. and Elementalist AoE capability. and being pulled into stacks of marks laid by Necromancers. Also, losing.

If it annoys someone, then odds are it’s working as intended. We may not like it, but that just means we’ve had bad experiences with it – Not that it needs to be fixed (Except heartseeker, kitten that thing).

a) without traiting specifically, I’d say our damage is “slower” to build than other professions. We max out about the same, and have more staying power once established, but it’s harder for a Mesmer to just drop in and be like “WHATS UP GUYS”. Also, AoEs pretty much kitten out our clones/phantasms on the way to attack/shatter.

b) I haven’t noticed this much. My clones rarely end up distracting my enemy for more than a single clone-death, and literally over half the time they don’t even do that. I’d like more realistic clone actions to mimic us, but I guess you have a point about how there’s a fair portion of players who can’t even figure out these useless ones.

i) I like GS3. It’s range is small, but it deals decent damage and cuts off boons. Good for PvE, pretty neat for WvW. I suppose it would suck for sPvP though – but again, catch22.

ii) I used a torch once. Just once. Honestly, I said earlier Scepter was worst – I take it back, torch is. Scepter is second worst.

iii) Oddly, I never really saw much complaints about the staff being OP before they nerfed it. That entire fiasco just kind of came out of nowhere to me.

Mantras: Need some fixing, maybe. They might work better for a Mesmer traited and focused on supporting their team, rather than attacking… But even then, it’s iffy. Like the scepter, they really don’t seem to have a place in any Mesmer who doesn’t specifically try to play around their mechanics.

1) Agreed, mostly due to the hatred we get for it. I never use it anyways, we have better elites.

It is currently fine for pve though and should not be changed there.

2) I am fairly certain they said they had fixed the culling issue and are just waiting for the patch. But I agree this needs to be fixed.

3) Agree about the scepter clones being bad but I disagree about the other clones. I like how they feel more unique right now and staff would need to be buffed if no longer helped with any damage of clones. And sword clones die so fast I don’t understand the issue with them.

4) I understand this issue. But I am hesitant to agree it needs to be fixed. Thieves and warriors can both arc attacks and overcome LOS, Aoe’s from others can hit over line of sight and do a lot more damage than iZerker. And without iZerker we have nothing to do for sieges. If this is nerfed we need some things to compensate.

5) The combo field issue with iduelist needs to be fixed, because each shot is a projectile finisher, when it should be only 30% chance. Other than that, the dps doesn’t seem bad to me, but this is one where you need to see the numbers from Anet.

6) I disagree with this, BF is fine.

Added for general balance: 7) I think that it might be a good idea to look at portals. Currently they are a game changer, especially in WvW, and some limits might be a good idea in the name of class balance. I don’t know what to do but I do understand why people are upset about them.

(a) – Our damage is fine.
(b) – I have no trouble spotting clones, and people are often upset because they don’t like to be tricked.

Buffs:
(i) GS 3 is just awful and useless
- agreed

(ii) iMage is a joke and makes Torch useless even though the prestige is fun
-agreed, although torch still has some uses but only because of prestige.

(iii) Staff seems fine to me.

(iv) scepter needs some condition on auto attack, like confusion on the third hit.

(v) Bug fixes

The responses here are a ton of fun and there is so much I agree with. A few thoughts.

(1) Moa — Funny enough I also do not use it (I run MI mostly) but it sure seems to agitate other players. One thing I appreciated about the design of other games is that not making people upset = more people playing = more people playing = better game. In other words, even if Moa is not something top mesmers (like some commentators here) use, it bugs other players when it is used and should be nerfed or eliminated (I would love a new elite and that “your world is an illusion” one sounds really cool.

(3) On clones I think there is a good argument going back and forth here. Everyone agrees scepter clones are useless. Everyone agrees that clones should be equalized. Almost everyone has outvoted me and says scepter clones need a buff versus quasi-nerfing or laterally changing the others (my proposal was maybe to take conditions out of the clone business and just let them all do some direct damage). But the agreement on scepter is a key point.

(5) I think I have to concede on iDuelist that ANet knows the numbers and I do not except subjectively.

(6) I cede to the crowd on BF except for the upsetting other player point, which I think is something to consider.

(i) so surprised to hear people like GS3 and seriously never really thought about it from a PvE perspective where obviously it would have some use. Basically not worth the skill twitch it takes for me to successfully land it in sPvP — maybe I’m just not that great.

(ii) full agreement that iMage stinks

(iii) I’ll stand down on staff too, I’m persuaded by the group that nothing is wrong.

(iv) (NEW FROM PURPLE SKIES) agree with purpleskies that scepter autoattack also needs some additional effect (maybe just to conform to the tooltip)

Moa, no. It’s kinda poopy, dodge-able (range), and only really knocks out one goober. If said goober is carrying the team, then yeah it’s going to suck. I could also mention Hundred Blades or that gd rogue spin/leap/bleed/loldodge spam. I won’t Q_Q though as those have specific counters (i.e. DODGE). Moa’s counter is the 9 year cooldown.

Stealth? * shrug * I don’t stealth, I facetank.

No no no no no to normalizing the clones/phantasms. I like having them do different, weird things. If we make things predictable and universal, we would all be playing WoW.

I would like to see some form of targeted AoE then. Siege contribution is kinda not there without Mr.I-Attack-Once-Every-Five-Seconds.

Duelist is fine, hug a guardian (like…me, I keep WoR slotted 100% of the time).

Cry for me on Blurred Frenzy. Like Hundred Blades, the damage is only there if you are foolish enough to stand in front of a sword wielding bad guy. The evasion is 2 seconds, then maybe another 3 seconds (with a 45s CD). Yes, the 45s CD comes back once every 90 sec with the traits for it. Everything the dagger rogue does is considered a dodge, but somehow that is ok? Blurred Frenzy is fine. (sPVPing on a Guardian, it’s crap if you sidestep.)

GS#3 is kind of iffy, if the stop’n’cast animation were removed (read: can be cast without interrupting movement) then I would see it being MUCH more useful.

Scepter#1 could use some form of small condition goodness. Since it seems to be the Confusion weapon, why not confusion?

Scepter#3 kind of irks me that it locks the player into place to cast, but has a shorter cast range. I would like to see it allow movement while casting or 1200 range.

Staff#4, could we see a slight cooldown drop? Maybe 25-30s or set buff to 7-10s? Just a thought :-P

-Hate

The “House of Glass” idea sounds cool and mesmer-y, but would be absolutely crazy in a PVE environment, especially if you consider stacked mesmers. The idea of stacking mesmers for use of it in PVP is kind of alarming as well. I suppose there could be ways to balance that idea, but I dont think Moa is enough of an issue to warrant the effort. It’s use is so situation and, honestly, is getting Moa’d anymore frustrating than getting instagibbed by a Thief? I thought whoever above suggested adding some serious kick to the “Moabilities” such that if someone gets Moa’d but knows what they’re doing they could continue to be an active participant. It certainly would still be an effective utility because you’re taking someone out of their usual element for significant period of time, but they can still react.

The stealth rendering issue isn’t Mesmer specific.

Could go either way on the clones. They’re intended to be disposable. Phantasms are just as disposable, but they hurt so people don’t ignore them as much. The problem is that there is a penalty for ignoring certain clones and not others. If you ignore the sword or staff clones you’re going to start having problems whereas you can pretty safely ignore scepter clones. The counter to that though seems to be that since sword/staff clones have some actual use, a mes isn’t as likely to shatter so quickly. So it seems like it’s actually pretty balanced to me.

I still believe the Berserker LOS is a bug that will eventually get fixed. It might have some impact on mesmer abilities vis a vis siege, etc. but I sincerely doubt it’s intended to ignore LOS.

I haven’t seen many complaints about Duelist. If they don’t have Fury they’re basically standing around waiting to get killed for what seems like a very long time anyway, so I don’t stress it.

Blurred Frenzy has a natural balance built in with the root. Just because it annoys people doesn’t mean it needs adjustment. By that standard we could remove the thief and mesmer professions entirely.

GS 3 is a useful tool, though it’s hard to use in sPvP and this is due, in part, to the nature of the GW2 combat system, not that the skill itself is so terrible/tough to use. There’s a twitch component to it and not everything is a pure behind the scenes dice roll. But, having said that, I still feel it’s not powerful enough to justify the ridiculously small target area, and the root on the mesmer in the sPvP environment.

I got Moa’d last night in sPvP (twice actually).

First of all, I was shocked.

Second, I didn’t die either time.

Third, I the second time I was Moa’d, I caught the fool with Moa5 and I could see him go wtf as he couldn’t fire any spells. That was so funny.