Guild Wars 2

Hi,

as most of you must have noticed by now, we have received yet another heavy nerf to our class. But i’m not (only) writing this because of the nerf but to suggest some changes to help reduce the unreliability of our skills and traits and bring them in line with those of other classes.

This will most likely be my longest post up to this point on these forums but i will try to get to the details of every change i’d like to see.

- Skills:

Winds of Chaos:
- remove Vulnerability.
- reduce Bleeding to 5s duration.

As it stands right now, the staff is basically our only real condition weapon as the scepter still doesn’t fit very well in either power of condi. But seeing that Vulnerability is very much useless on a condition weapon i would suggest to remove it. To offset the increased amounts of condition ticks i also propose to reduce the bleed duration to 5s.
Apart from buffing the condition side of the staff, this change also is a nerf to shatter specs, since most of them (me included) run a staff and can actually make use of the Vulnerability.

Chaos Armor:
- remove Swiftness
- set Protection duration to 3s.
- increase Regeneration to 8s duration.
- remove Crippled
- increase Confusion duration to 5s.
- increase Blind duration to 5s.

While we mesmers are in need of actual movement speed (more to this later), our in-combat mobility is already quite good so in an attempt to increase reliability i propose to remove both swiftness and cripple from chaos armor.
Now that chaos armor got an ICD of 1s i like to compare it with Fire Shield -> 10s might. Seeing that chaos armors boons last not even 1/3rd of this seems a bit odd so i suggest to increase base durations of regeneration. The patch isn’t live yet so i don’t know about the actual protection duration, but 3 seconds seems like a good amount. I also increased the duration of the inflicted conditions as it’s no longer possible to stack them on fast hitting enemies. It doesn’t really make a difference for the blind but our confusion is already in need of a buff.

Signet of Inspiration:
- change passive to +25% movement speed.

Well, as we all now, the passive of this utility skill is very much useless right now as it’s the absolute embodiment of unreliability. Players are basically only taking this skill for it’s passive so i suggest to actually give this signet something the mesmer is heavily lacking: Movement speed without relying heavily on the focus or subpar runes.

- Traits:

Confounding Suggestions:
- now converts all dazes into stuns.

Until now i have never seen any mesmer taking this trait. It’s extremely weak for being grandmaster and even weakens some of our skills (reducing Magic Bullet’s 2s daze to a 1s stun). As we are supposed to have an interrupt subtheme, this trait would actually make some of our skills worthwhile and one could even consider taking Mantra of Distraction (not that you can’t take this trait and activate Mantras 3 times before recharging since both are grandmaster traits in the same trait line).

Bountiful Interruption:
- remove all random boons.
- now grants 5 stacks of might for 20s on interrupt.

The sheer amount of randomness in this skill makes it basically unusable for any build. Since a real interrupt happens maybe 2 or 3 times in a real fight, i suggest to increase the base duration of the gained might to make it actually usable. In combination with the change to Confounding Suggestions, interrupt builds might finally be useful.

Chaotic Interruption:
- remove all random boons.
- add chance for 5 stacks of Bleeding (5s).
- add chance for 5 stacks of Torment (5s).

When you are already immobilizing your opponent, chilling or crippling doesn’t really makes any sense. So i decided to add some damage to this trait in the form of either bleeding or torment. Both conditions are more or less the same so i suggest the same base duration. As a grandmaster trait, this also could do with some good damage.

Well, that’s it. I’m actually not quite sure about the traits but it’s quite obvious that ArenaNet wants to make interrupt builds usable so they need the buff.

And now…flame me to death my pink butterfly comrades ^^

Iavra.8510:

Bountiful Interruption:
- remove all random boons.
- now grants 5 stacks of might for 20s on interrupt.

The sheer amount of randomness in this skill makes it basically unusable for any build. Since a real interrupt happens maybe 2 or 3 times in a real fight, i suggest to increase the base duration of the gained might to make it actually usable. In combination with the change to Confounding Suggestions, interrupt builds might finally be useful.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to make a full reply, but I like some of your suggestions. Just one thing I’ll note from personal experience. Bountiful Interruptions is far from unusable, and increasing the might duration to 20s would make it absolutely overpowered. Think about people stacking boon durations, that’s 40+ seconds of might!

We have quite a few methods of AoE interrupts, and as it is currently and I’m regularly getting an easy 15-25 stacks of might from this trait as it is. Plus, the random boon (although unreliable) is a nice bonus.

That said, I think the randomness is sort of the flavor ANet wanted with the mesmer, so I doubt we’ll ever become as straightforward as other professions in that regard, but I agree that we should at least tailor the randomness so that it makes sense and is beneficial to the mesmer using the skill.

Well, yeah, i was also thinking about boon duration stacking but, at least for me, i makes sense compared to engi HGH and ele insane firefield + blast finishers.

But, as already stated, i’m not that sure about the trait changes. I also thought about changing Chaos Storm since, face it, nobody really fears that skill apart from the occasional daze. I thought about limiting the skill to daze, chill (2s) and cripple (3s) but couldn’t come up with a good overall concept.

Iavra.8510:

Confounding Suggestions:
- now converts all dazes into stuns.

Until now i have never seen any mesmer taking this trait. It’s extremely weak for being grandmaster and even weakens some of our skills (reducing Magic Bullet’s 2s daze to a 1s stun). As we are supposed to have an interrupt subtheme, this trait would actually make some of our skills worthwhile and one could even consider taking Mantra of Distraction (not that you can’t take this trait and activate Mantras 3 times before recharging since both are grandmaster traits in the same trait line).

Just as an alternate. Why not a snare?

“All Dazes also immobilize their targets”

Keeping the daze effect it’s also kind of like a stun but not exactly.

It follows the controlly kind of power combat designed for the domination tree.

It allows more play against it however being more reliable of an ability.

Also can solve our running problem.

And make off hand sword more appealing (even though I personally love off hand sword to bits <3)

Stuns also kinda immobilize since you can’t move. Changing it to an immobilize would actually make it even stronger since you now need a stunbreak for the daze and a cleanse for the immobilize opposed to “just a stunbreak” for the stun.