Stealth: The Pledge

Stealth: The Pledge

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Posted by: Scapper.4236

Scapper.4236

We all know that this trait is overpowered when coupled with PU, however I noticed while running with my focus party is if you stand in the blasted smoke field, and activate your The Prestige see the cooldown melt as 2 separate instance of stealth cuts it down massively, hopefully Anet will look into this but didn’t expect it to be used in this manner!

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Posted by: AlphatheWhite.9351

AlphatheWhite.9351

Perhaps, but how much abuse do you think you’re gonna get out of that?

Mesmer stealth doesn’t stack with other sources of stealth.
So if you use your stealth skill while you are stealthed, you’ll find your stealth skill reduced…

The best I can come up with is getting iMages out a lot quicker? If you have a buddy who can create and blast 2 smoke fields for you in a row?
If iMage were scarier I’d be more concerned, I guess.

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Posted by: Scapper.4236

Scapper.4236

That’s not the concern the “iMage”, stealth in it’s self is really strong and if a mesmer can run this said exploit he can outlast many of the opposition team’s stealth parties which is very important in pressure gameplay (GvG) therefore a mesmer can sit back with an extra stealth skill and out manoeuvre the opposition. There are many bugs similar to this such as the thief sw 2+jump combo or the ranger blast bug, but stealth is a key component to GvGs, and The Prestige does stack with smoke blast fields so you are looking at a very strong stealth potential which will break down the ability of other focus teams to compete even if they are running different traits or set ups.

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Posted by: Photoloss.4817

Photoloss.4817

Wait, if you stack The Prestige while under the effects of blast stealth, aren’t you wasting stealth uptime to regain some of it through this “exploit”?

That said the trait does hinge on PU a lot, which is a massive nerf to any build that only wanted a bit of tactical stealth (or condi clear on weapon skills).

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Posted by: Dondagora.9645

Dondagora.9645

Isn’t this how conditional CD reductions should be? I mean The Pledge is weak 99% of the time without PU, but the fact that we don’t get a flat and reliable reduction of 20% should be compensated by the fact that, with effort and some situational awareness/teamwork/luck, you’ll be able to surpass a mere 20% reduction?

I personally don’t see a problem with what you’re pointing out.

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Posted by: Fay.2357

Fay.2357

Just to be clear, as some people aren’t understanding the op.

Thief stealth and Mesmer stealth do not stack. Applying both will leave you with 2 identical stealth icons on your bar.

The bug being discussed is that when those 2 different stealths are on you, the pledge causes torch skills to recharge at 1.5% per second for each applied stealth buff, or a total of 3% per second.

However, as was mentioned, doing this means just that you’re using a skill that stealths you while you’re already in thief stealth (thereby giving you no extra stealth duration) just to get faster recharge on the stealth skill you just use.

Yeah, it’s a bug…but it’s a pretty useless one.

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Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

BUT PYRO, YOU CAN INCREASE THE CDR FROM THE PLEDGE TO 66% FROM 33% WHILE MAINTAINING 100% STEALTH (in both instances)!!! OPNERF!!!~!!!~!!!!!oneoneone!!11!!

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Posted by: Arshay Duskbrow.1306

Arshay Duskbrow.1306

We all know that this trait is overpowered when coupled with PU,

No, we don’t all know that. Stop trying to speak for everyone.

(edited by Arshay Duskbrow.1306)

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Posted by: Kusa.6438

Kusa.6438

I don’t see Stealth being as overpowered as people claim. It’s no where near as powerful as a thief’s stealth and burst capabilities. Honestly I just think its the typical “OMG MY CLASS ISN’T MORE OP ANYMORE, NERF OTHER CLASSES” rant. For once mesmer is finally balanced with the other classes and people seem to be upset.

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Posted by: AlphatheWhite.9351

AlphatheWhite.9351

Fay put it better than I did.
It is impossible to get more stealth with this bug than you already have. If you have a full 6s of stealth from the smoke field, and activate The Prestige at exactly the same moment, The Prestige starts charging at a rate of 3% per second, which is 0.9 seconds per second. Over the 6 seconds you have stealth from both the smoke field and The Prestige, that’s 5.4 seconds of cooldown reduction. So at the end of the stealth from The Prestige, the cooldown on it will be down to…18.6 seconds.
If, however, you saved The Prestige to use, your cooldown remaining will be…0 seconds.

So, you can see that the ability to use abilities when you actually need them is OP! You can stack a stealth skill after another stealth skill to have even more stealth! If you wait to use The Prestige until after the smoke field is finished, you can extend the 6 seconds of stealth you got from the smoke field to a full 12 seconds of stealth, and all because exploiting the ability to wait to use The Prestige left it on a 0 second cooldown!

Replace the iMage with a skill like Blowtorch, and I’ll think about being worried.

Meanwhile, spending a skill to recharge itself is inane, and I could already get iMages out plenty fast without help, thank you…if they were worth using, that is.
.72

…okay, I’ve been staring at it trying to really find some way to exploit this.
iMages attack immediately, which makes them a bit of a nuke in a way.
So when I pop an iMage, it starts at a 24s cooldown with Illusions. If I immediately pop into stealth and get smoke field stealth, it starts to recharge at an extra .03*24=.72 seconds per second, so total recharge per second in stealth is 1.72s per second.
That means I will get my next iMage in about 14 seconds, if I can keep up essentially permanent stealth.
So that’s a 7.75 second stack of burning every 14 seconds, and I can shatter the iMage on top of that.
But Alpha! The iMage gets to attack multiple times in that duration, right? So it stacks up more burning!
Way ahead of you. At 7.75 seconds, with a 4.8s attack speed (from Phantasmal Haste), we average 1.6 stacks of burning while the iMage is alive. In essence, we’ve got a 1.6 stack of burn for 14 seconds on a 14 second cooldown.

Is 14 seconds really that short?
Well, Blowtorch starts on a 15 second cooldown, and applies up to 3 stacks of burning for 13.25 seconds (on my condi engi). So that skill is twice as effective at applying burning as the iMage.
So no, it’s not that short.

Plus, we were able to just create clones and shatter them anyway in the time we’d be waiting for another iMage, so they’re really not good shatter fuel, which means we can’t use that to boost our dps at all.

So no, we’re still not within spitting distance of what engineers can throw out, and it relies on having a thief around, or someone else who can throw up and blast a smoke field for you.

Yeah, it’s not happening. At least it makes it easier for us to get iMages out, right? Assuming we have someone around to give us a smoke field and then blast it, because the smoke from The Prestige is not a smoke field, and we don’t have any blast finishers that aren’t, in fact, The Prestige, and assuming we can keep up our double stealth permanently.

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Posted by: Scapper.4236

Scapper.4236

Just to be clear, from the point of view of a focus party mesmer it adds insult to injury being that mesmers already have PU most probably traited. What I am saying is even if it the blast instance does run out the fact remains you have a fresh Prestige back on cd and this is a bug, even if minor it does impact the game play of focus parties negatively as you are exploiting two instance of stealth to last longer than your opponent, simple. If I do open up on your enemy it wouldn’t matter if got opened upon because I have a restealth on cooldown almost instantly thus taking advantage of the double instance post to the stealth up.

(edited by Scapper.4236)

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Posted by: AlphatheWhite.9351

AlphatheWhite.9351

Just to be clear, from the point of view of a focus party mesmer it adds insult to injury being that mesmers already have PU most probably traited. What I am saying is even if it the blast instance does run out the fact remains you have a fresh Prestige back on cd and this is a bug, even if minor it does impact the game play of focus parties negatively as you are exploiting two instance of stealth to last longer than your opponent, simple. If I do open up on your enemy it wouldn’t matter if got opened upon because I have a restealth on cooldown almost instantly thus taking advantage of the double instance post to the stealth up.

You just ignored my math completely. Why? Probably because I proved you wrong, but let’s have another go.

You do NOT have a fresh Prestige back on cd.

30 second cooldown for The Prestige.

Let’s say you manage to keep up this double-stealth until the Prestige gets off cooldown.

So every second, The Prestige sheds 1s of cooldown naturally, then another 3% of its cooldown.
.03(30) = .9
So every second, The Prestige sheds 1.9s of its cooldown.
At what time does The Prestige come off cooldown?
t(1.9) = 30
t = 30/1.9 = 15.8s

The prestige doesn’t come off cooldown until 15.8 seconds. For the record, that’s a whopping 47.3% cooldown reduction.

To accomplish that, you need double stealth for 15.8 seconds.
The Prestige itself granted 6, so you need another 10.
Popping Mass Invisibility gives you the 10 you need.

Now you just need 16 seconds of stealth from another player. You can get 6s or so from a thief blasting a smoke field, and then they just drop shadow refuge and you’ve got it.
Now you just pop The Prestige and get your extra 6 seconds!

Skill usages:
The Prestige, Mass Invisibility, Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen

Total stealth: 6(Prestige/Smoke) + 15(Refuge) + 6(Prestige) = 27 seconds on you, 21 seconds on the thief.

NOW let’s not do the double up thing.

Activate Mass Invisibility. When it runs out, the thief activates and blasts smoke screen.
When it runs out, the thief activates Shadow Refuge. When it runs out, you activate The Prestige.

Skill usages:
Mass invisibility, Smoke Screen, Shadow Refuge, The Prestige

Total stealth: 10(MI) + 6(Smoke) + 15(Refuge) + 6(Prestige) = 37 seconds on you, 31 seconds on the thief.

BOTH OF YOU get more stealth by not trying to exploit this.
Why? Because the exploit gets you a measly extra 1.5% cooldown per second of stealth, while doubling-up on stealth skills is a 100% stealth time loss for those skills, because you are wasting them.

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Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

Alpha, The Pledge reduces CDR by half of what you’re listing (0.015 not 0.03).

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Posted by: Fay.2357

Fay.2357

Alpha, The Pledge reduces CDR by half of what you’re listing (0.015 not 0.03).

This entire thread exists to discuss the bug whereby you get 3% cooldown pulses when under the effects of both Mesmer and thief stealth.

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Posted by: Photoloss.4817

Photoloss.4817

Alpha, The Pledge reduces CDR by half of what you’re listing (0.015 not 0.03).

You did not read this thread, did you?

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Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

Sorry, I read Alphas and misinterpreted the double stealth as normal single stealthing. Brain half off today.

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Posted by: Scapper.4236

Scapper.4236

Just to be clear, from the point of view of a focus party mesmer it adds insult to injury being that mesmers already have PU most probably traited. What I am saying is even if it the blast instance does run out the fact remains you have a fresh Prestige back on cd and this is a bug, even if minor it does impact the game play of focus parties negatively as you are exploiting two instance of stealth to last longer than your opponent, simple. If I do open up on your enemy it wouldn’t matter if got opened upon because I have a restealth on cooldown almost instantly thus taking advantage of the double instance post to the stealth up.

You just ignored my math completely. Why? Probably because I proved you wrong, but let’s have another go.

You do NOT have a fresh Prestige back on cd.

30 second cooldown for The Prestige.

Let’s say you manage to keep up this double-stealth until the Prestige gets off cooldown.

So every second, The Prestige sheds 1s of cooldown naturally, then another 3% of its cooldown.
.03(30) = .9
So every second, The Prestige sheds 1.9s of its cooldown.
At what time does The Prestige come off cooldown?
t(1.9) = 30
t = 30/1.9 = 15.8s

The prestige doesn’t come off cooldown until 15.8 seconds. For the record, that’s a whopping 47.3% cooldown reduction.

To accomplish that, you need double stealth for 15.8 seconds.
The Prestige itself granted 6, so you need another 10.
Popping Mass Invisibility gives you the 10 you need.

Now you just need 16 seconds of stealth from another player. You can get 6s or so from a thief blasting a smoke field, and then they just drop shadow refuge and you’ve got it.
Now you just pop The Prestige and get your extra 6 seconds!

Skill usages:
The Prestige, Mass Invisibility, Shadow Refuge, Smoke Screen

Total stealth: 6(Prestige/Smoke) + 15(Refuge) + 6(Prestige) = 27 seconds on you, 21 seconds on the thief.

NOW let’s not do the double up thing.

Activate Mass Invisibility. When it runs out, the thief activates and blasts smoke screen.
When it runs out, the thief activates Shadow Refuge. When it runs out, you activate The Prestige.

Skill usages:
Mass invisibility, Smoke Screen, Shadow Refuge, The Prestige

Total stealth: 10(MI) + 6(Smoke) + 15(Refuge) + 6(Prestige) = 37 seconds on you, 31 seconds on the thief.

BOTH OF YOU get more stealth by not trying to exploit this.
Why? Because the exploit gets you a measly extra 1.5% cooldown per second of stealth, while doubling-up on stealth skills is a 100% stealth time loss for those skills, because you are wasting them.

I understand the mathematics, and I do not disregard it. What I want to emphasize is that the Pledge should only be active for stealth provided by the mesmer and not second parties, even though it would require you to waste cooldown, but frankly it wouldn’t matter because I am sitting in stealth for such a long time, until I decide to open, by which time I have a stealth off cooldown.

I am not planning to sit in stealth for the whole duration and of course there is a point where I would burst, also adding to that a very sound way of bursting for mesmer when running solo is to use The Prestige and then bursting, (had North of 2,8k burst Prestiges myself) What is the issue? Obviously I don’t care about the math because practically I have tested and successfully was able to burst twice when running with a thief because of the “amazing cool-down reduction”. Of course this is all situational, but what happens when the thief is not there, well, I can then sustain myself by wasting cooldowns which I would not have done in the first instance because the aim is not seeing how long I can sit in stealth but to what extent it can be abused and played around with when running with a focus party.

Firstly refrain from being sardonic when replying as it makes it very difficult to make my reply constructive and secondly understand the situation and test it, and see how I can successfully burst twice in an ideal situation, where one burst from a mesmer should be more than sufficient considering how strong it is now.

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Posted by: Sunflowers.1729

Sunflowers.1729

I understand the mathematics, and I do not disregard it. What I want to emphasize is that the Pledge should only be active for stealth provided by the mesmer and not second parties, even though it would require you to waste cooldown, but frankly it wouldn’t matter because I am sitting in stealth for such a long time, until I decide to open, by which time I have a stealth off cooldown.

I am not planning to sit in stealth for the whole duration and of course there is a point where I would burst, also adding to that a very sound way of bursting for mesmer when running solo is to use The Prestige and then bursting, (had North of 2,8k burst Prestiges myself) What is the issue? Obviously I don’t care about the math because practically I have tested and successfully was able to burst twice when running with a thief because of the “amazing cool-down reduction”. Of course this is all situational, but what happens when the thief is not there, well, I can then sustain myself by wasting cooldowns which I would not have done in the first instance because the aim is not seeing how long I can sit in stealth but to what extent it can be abused and played around with when running with a focus party.

Still not sure what you’re getting at, if you didn’t use torch stealth when stealthed by the Thief, wouldn’t it be off cooldown as well?

Can you clarify? What’s the difference between:

a) You have both Prestige + Thief stealth active, then hit the enemy and enter stealth again because the double cooldown reduction makes it come off CD faster

b) Thief stealths you, you attack, then stealth again with Torch because you didn’t use it in the first place.

In both you can attack from stealth and disappear again after attacking. In fact case (b) is always better because you have the option to extend stealth if it’s needed, unless you really need the boons from PU (in case (a) you can get the buffs both before and after)

So yes it’s a bug – which should be fixed – but it doesn’t do that much.

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Posted by: Liewec.2896

Liewec.2896

so you can either:

use both stealths together to regain twice the amount of recharge quickly.

or use mesmer stealth after the blast stealth to regain twice the amount anyway and longer stealth?

why would you? you’re getting the same recharge you just get longer time in stealth if you use one after the other.

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Posted by: Fay.2357

Fay.2357

Yeah, I’m not sure if the OP is being deliberately obtuse or just trolling, but while amusing, this bug is definitionally useless.

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Posted by: scerevisiae.1972

scerevisiae.1972

Have they fixed this bug or is it still in game?

downed state is bad for PVP

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Posted by: Koolaid.9152

Koolaid.9152

So. Can someone take down this post now lol

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

We all know that this trait is overpowered when coupled with PU, however I noticed while running with my focus party is if you stand in the blasted smoke field, and activate your The Prestige see the cooldown melt as 2 separate instance of stealth cuts it down massively, hopefully Anet will look into this but didn’t expect it to be used in this manner!

I would like to see it reverted back to its original 20% flat reduction instead. Problem is that if it gets nerfed on the reduction component, it will become about as useful as Chaotic Dampening, and we all know how that one turned out.

Prestige trait along with Chaotic Dampening just need to have those mechanics removed and be reverted back to flat values.

Also, while this may be OP at this moment, it may or may not remain so, remember, more specs / elites etc. are still coming, and A-Net has a better idea where this will fit into all those while we do not.

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

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Posted by: scerevisiae.1972

scerevisiae.1972

We all know that this trait is overpowered when coupled with PU, however I noticed while running with my focus party is if you stand in the blasted smoke field, and activate your The Prestige see the cooldown melt as 2 separate instance of stealth cuts it down massively, hopefully Anet will look into this but didn’t expect it to be used in this manner!

I would like to see it reverted back to its original 20% flat reduction instead. Problem is that if it gets nerfed on the reduction component, it will become about as useful as Chaotic Dampening, and we all know how that one turned out.

Prestige trait along with Chaotic Dampening just need to have those mechanics removed and be reverted back to flat values.

Also, while this may be OP at this moment, it may or may not remain so, remember, more specs / elites etc. are still coming, and A-Net has a better idea where this will fit into all those while we do not.

Agree, but 22sec of continuous stealth on my mesmer plus 20K bursts in 1sec from stealth makes my thief feel like a joke.

downed state is bad for PVP

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Posted by: apharma.3741

apharma.3741

Agree, but 22sec of continuous stealth on my mesmer plus 20K bursts in 1sec from stealth makes my thief feel like a joke.

U wot? Show me a 20k burst in 1s from a mesmer on someone who isn’t either afk or an NPC please.

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Posted by: Angel de Lyssa.4716

Angel de Lyssa.4716

The torch you need is to be more practical and flexible it is now almost 90% support, and nothing dps, the phantasmal is very slow and recharge With time high. What They Should do is reduce STIs recharge time, Which attack a little faster, faster and His projectile attack Pursue the enemy, as the projectile attack “eco Memory”

I Suggest:

The Prestige: Disappear in a cloud of smoke, blinding nearby foes. Press again to reappear, burning nearby foes.

Damage: 430
1x Blind 5s
Stealth 3s
x3 Burning 5s
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 360
Combo Finisher: Blast
30s Recharge Time

Now we can press again the prestige for the second time to exit stealth, and hit the enemy in area without having to wait 3 seconds of stealth, or 6 seconds if we have the trait grandmaster Understanding Prismatic, with that, get to damage blast pressing it a second time, or in support with the stealth seconds.

Also i increased the area of effect because it is very limited, and the condition burn increased by x3 and to 5 seconds long, because it compensates with a high recharge time.

Phantasmal Mage: Create an illusion that burns foes and grants fury to allies.

DaƱo: 430
x1 Fury 5s
x2 Burning 6s
Number of Bounces: 3
Range: 1,200
20s Recharge time

The phantasmal mage is very weak compared to the rest of mesmer phantasmal also has a high recharge time. I’ve reduced the recharge time to 20 seconds, I have increased the burn that inflict x2 and duration of fury to 5 seconds, with that, phantasmal mage got inflict a little more damage compared with the damage of other phantasmal mesmer, in addition to support with fury allies with a little more time.