Guild Wars 2

[URL=“http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/sky-pirates-tyria-traits-preview-part-one”]http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/sky-pirates-tyria-traits-preview-part-one[/URL]

[QUOTE]Mesmer

MBreak
Domination

Nothing changed on this trait line.

Dueling

“Protected Mantras” which will give you +400 toughness (at level 80) as compared to the previous +250 toughness.
Grandmaster Trait “Furious Interruption” which gives 3 seconds of Quickness when you interrupt a foe every fifteen seconds.

Chaos

The Master trait “Chaotic Interruption” has been swapped with the Grandmaster trait “Bountiful Interruption”. “Bountiful Interruption” now provides might for five seconds when you interrupt a foe, then gain another boon randomly.
“Chaotic Interruption” now Immobilizes your target when you interrupt them and randomly applies blind, cripple or chill.

Inspiration

“Malicious Sorcery” now gives +200 condition damage when wielding a scepter.
“Shattered Conditions” now removes conditions from allies around you and yourself.

Illusion

The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.
“Imbued Diversion” has been clarified to Diversion hits up to 5 targets in a large area.
[/QUOTE]

Let us start to theorycraft…

“The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHH

athuria.2751:

“The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHH

At first I read that and said “Oh thats not so bad.. no one used the speedboost anyways.” (Compounding Celerity)

Then I stopped, did a double-take, and kitten ed myself. =[

In this notes:

They has delete the Domination trait from leaked notes:

Domination
Halting Strike: Damage dealt when interrupting enemies has been increased by 500%.
Small variation in some description and:

Edit: llusionist Celerity being moved to Grandmaster Minor trait!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

athuria.2751:

“The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHH

At first I read that and said “Oh thats not so bad.. no one used the speedboost anyways.” (Compounding Celerity)

Then I stopped, did a double-take, and kitten ed myself. =[

Yeah I read that as Compounding Celerity first.

This is massive. Rip ALL mesmer builds that don’t go 25 into illusions

So much for increased build diversity – build diversity for mesmers has just been crucified.

So basically a flat 20% nerf to every phantasm build out there. We are used to getting nerfed every month anywhere…

/edit: And i like how warriors get their passive permanent +25% movement speed without even having to use up a utility skill while we aren’t even getting Compounding Celerity (which only works in combat anyway) buffed.

Zoser.7245:

We just have a thread with them.

The only difference is that this web has delete the Domination trait from leaked notes:

Domination
Halting Strike: Damage dealt when interrupting enemies has been increased by 500%.

And a small variation in some description.
Nothing new on the horizon. This is more than seen.

What are you talking about? There was nothing about Illusionist Celerity being moved to Grandmaster Minor in the leaked patch notes !!!!!!!!!!!! Check yourself: http://pastebin.com/2rrFg9pS

It’s a direct 20% dmg nerf to phantasm mesmers.

PadmaN.7820:

Zoser.7245:

Snip

Yes , i read it too fast. The remove of the change in Halting Strike plus the move of Illusionist Celerity to GrandMaster Minor are two straight hits from leaked notes. I’ve edited my last post.

We are basically in one boat with elementalists now, who need 30 in Arcane.

Hyung.6140:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

athuria.2751:

“The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHH

At first I read that and said “Oh thats not so bad.. no one used the speedboost anyways.” (Compounding Celerity)

Then I stopped, did a double-take, and kitten ed myself. =[

Yeah I read that as Compounding Celerity first.

This is massive. Rip ALL mesmer builds that don’t go 25 into illusions

So much for increased build diversity – build diversity for mesmers has just been crucified.

It wouldn’t even be that big of a punch of it was something that only hit Phantasm recharges but IC affects so much more (Phase Retreat, iLeap which remember is buggy as kitten, Mirror Blade, etc), so it punches our main mechanic and a lot of our weapon’s utility by stretching them out. Anyone using Decoy (Or Mirror Images, if anyone not a shatter build does that) just got a longer CD on it as well.

shimmerless.4560:

It probably wasn’t intended that you’d get fantastic uptime on phants without speccing into Illusions. My real worry is that Celerity is still too integral to the class because almost all of our weapon skills and utils are tied to clones.

If only the Illusions line wasn’t otherwise by and large useless for Phantasms. Even Haste is a give or take since it doesn’t even work properly on a lot of them. \o/

Illusionist celerity, if true, is HUGE (nerf).

Remember the usual “mes is crappy baseline and has good traits that makes it decent”?

Well, the CD on phantasm are retartedly long as base. IC was MANDATORY for any mes build – i can’t think more that 2-3 without it.

Moving it 20 pts further it’s a incredible butchering for 90% of mes builds out there. Only ones not touched are Shatters (30 illusions for IP), and the very few ones w/o pts in illusion already.

I really hope that this is fake too – at least have to wait only 24hrs or so to find out.

athuria.2751:

It wouldn’t even be that big of a punch of it was something that only hit Phantasm recharges but IC affects so much more (Phase Retreat, iLeap which remember is buggy as kitten, Mirror Blade, etc), so it punches our main mechanic and a lot of our weapon’s utility by stretching them out. Anyone using Decoy (Or Mirror Images, if anyone not a shatter build does that) just got a longer CD on it as well.

Yep, I absolutely agree. It’s more than a straight up damage nerf. 5 points in Illusions was always a complete necessity for mesmers, now 25 points in Illusions is a necessity.

Yay diversity! \o/

athuria.2751:

shimmerless.4560:

It probably wasn’t intended that you’d get fantastic uptime on phants without speccing into Illusions. My real worry is that Celerity is still too integral to the class because almost all of our weapon skills and utils are tied to clones.

If only the Illusions line wasn’t otherwise by and large useless for Phantasms. Even Haste is a give or take since it doesn’t even work properly on a lot of them. \o/

Exactly. There’s a reason most phant builds only go 5 into Illusions. Putting 25 into Illusions basically means it’s not a phant build anymore…

The issue with this change isn’t phantasm mesmers—it’s every single other non-shatter build. It does nerf phantasm mesmers, but the irritating thing is that it is a strong nerf to every single other build as well. Condition builds are now even less viable, the shutdown build they seem to be pushing isn’t going to be easily viable…it’s just a flat nerf to every Mesmer build that isn’t shatter.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Illusionist Celerity nerf is real. I’ve anticipated it for a long time now…just always hoped that it wouldn’t happen. Oh well…not like it’ll change my shatter build. >_>

btw, this means that 2 skill out of 5 weapon skills have a 20% higher CD for all the builds with less than 25 in illusion.

Diversity!

(how am i supposed to try out new grandmasters if i have to drop 25 pts in illusion ,instead of 5 + 20 in dueling for enough clones.)

AndrewSX.3794:

btw, this means that 2 skill out of 5 weapon skills have a 20% higher CD for all the builds with less than 25 in illusion.

Diversity!

(how am i supposed to try out new grandmasters if i have to drop 25 pts in illusion ,instead of 5 + 20 in dueling for enough clones.)

It’s a hidden message. You’re not supposed to be diverse, you’re supposed to play shatter.

Pyroatheist.9031:

The issue with this change isn’t phantasm mesmers—it’s every single other non-shatter build. It does nerf phantasm mesmers, but the irritating thing is that it is a strong nerf to every single other build as well. Condition builds are now even less viable, the shutdown build they seem to be pushing isn’t going to be easily viable…it’s just a flat nerf to every Mesmer build that isn’t shatter.

I wasn’t sure how deep Condi builds (that aren’t Glamour builds) tended to go, because I know Illusionary Elasticity is popular with those that use staff (which is bugged anyway last I heard) but you’re right—it’s a heavy-handed punch to pretty much everything that isn’t shatter, which was already one of our most common builds.

Pyroatheist.9031:

It’s a hidden message. You’re not supposed to be diverse, you’re supposed to play shatter.

Great stuff if you think pvp is trash and never play it (like i do). :p

(hint: shatter is decent only in spvp, if you’re not playing there IC nerf is nerf to every single build out there for wvw/pve. well, maybe not glam, i have 30 pts in illusion for the glam traits…)

athuria.2751:

Pyroatheist.9031:

The issue with this change isn’t phantasm mesmers—it’s every single other non-shatter build. It does nerf phantasm mesmers, but the irritating thing is that it is a strong nerf to every single other build as well. Condition builds are now even less viable, the shutdown build they seem to be pushing isn’t going to be easily viable…it’s just a flat nerf to every Mesmer build that isn’t shatter.

I wasn’t sure how deep Condi builds (that aren’t Glamour builds) tended to go, because I know Illusionary Elasticity is popular with those that use staff (which is bugged anyway last I heard) but you’re right—it’s a heavy-handed punch to pretty much everything that isn’t shatter, which was already one of our most common builds.

Condie builds won’t go past 20 in illusions because there’s nothing really helpful to condie builds there. That type of build is already thin on trait points because it needs 20 in illusions, 20 in dueling, and 20 in chaos ideally. It doesn’t have a lot of flexibility.

Yay… everyone shatter mesmer now ! Next month : Shatter damage reduced.

AndrewSX.3794:

btw, this means that 2 skill out of 5 weapon skills have a 20% higher CD for all the builds with less than 25 in illusion.

Diversity!

(how am i supposed to try out new grandmasters if i have to drop 25 pts in illusion ,instead of 5 + 20 in dueling for enough clones.)

More like 2/4 or 3/4 for sword/sword. I wouldn’t count auto attack for cooldown reduction. Then Mirror Images, Decoy, phantasm utilties… so easily 5/9 abilities on my bar. At least I’m roll as a shatter mesmer but this does seem way too heavy handed.

This was not mentioned in the previous leaked notes and nothing indicates that these are official. ALSO, we didn’t get any changes in Domination and we were promised at least one change in every line. This preview doesn’t mention the new condition either. So, I think we just need to be patient and pray to lyssa.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

AndrewSX.3794:

btw, this means that 2 skill out of 5 weapon skills have a 20% higher CD for all the builds with less than 25 in illusion.

Diversity!

(how am i supposed to try out new grandmasters if i have to drop 25 pts in illusion ,instead of 5 + 20 in dueling for enough clones.)

More like 2/4 or 3/4 for sword/sword. I wouldn’t count auto attack for cooldown reduction. Then Mirror Images, Decoy, phantasm utilties… so easily 5/9 abilities on my bar. At least I’m roll as a shatter mesmer but this does seem way too heavy handed.

This was not mentioned in the previous leaked notes and nothing indicates that these are official. ALSO, we didn’t get any changes in Domination and we were promised at least one change in every line. This preview doesn’t mention the new condition either. So, I think we just need to be patient and pray to lyssa.

Halting strike is in domination.

Edit: That was in the previous ones, I see it’s not in these ones here. Strange, since all the other interrupt traits are listed.

All I’m seeing here is an Anet response to the whiners complaining about how strong phantasm builds are. Man, such a huge nerf if true. Could possibly be the biggest nerf since the beginning of the game. Seriously, can we make so many of our non-shatter builds viable with this nerf? On one hand I entertain that question, but on the other hand I don’t like to speculate too much on an unknown. Hopefully this is just someone casting decoy on us.

The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.

Basically the worst news for Mesmers since the game came out. That’s like… what, half of our skills (weapon and utility) that will suffer unless we sink 25 points into Illusion? Or rather, over a third of our skill points?

I guess instead of 5 points being a staple, now it’ll be 25 points? Very disappointing.

I suppose we could try to make the most of it and consider what else is in Illusions that all build could benefit from… Compounding Power, Shattered Invigoration, etc… still though, augh. This doesn’t promote diversity at all. It’s extremely limiting.

Illusions has a lot of very strong globally useful traits whose placement could stand to be looked at (iElasticity comes to mind).

I’m going to wait and see how this plays out. A second or two more on some skills wont be the end of the world to me, just means I need to manage cooldowns better.

This makes me wonder though, if this change is true, which trait goes in IC’s place? I’d hope it’s the might stacking Shattered Strength.

It’ll be Illusionary Retribution—all shatter skills inflict confusion.

The only thing that could make this change have a little sense is if base CD’s of all summons skills (all the ones affected by IC) gets lowered.

This way 5 pts would actually be freed (you have actual IC CD’s w/o taking it) for most builds, and at same time dipping points in illusion would have even more appeal as offset, even outside shatter builds.

Ofc this should be followed by some tweaks – like not having IC and single weaponset traits stack for a 40% Cd reduction on summons in weapon skills, but that’s the only things that could have sense, and that could be possible to hope w/o the weapon skills in that leak.

Example: IDuelist.
Now:
Base Cd 20s
Cd with IC or Duelist Discipline 16s
Cd with IC + Duelist Discipline 12s
After:
Base Cd 16s
Cd with IC or Duelist Discipline 12s
Cd with IC + Duelist Discipline 12s

(keep in mind that now IC is hard to get at 25 pts.)

It was a required 5 points in Illusion for all builds. Now, it’s not.

While I’m going to miss the recharge reduction for my support builds, it means that I will be moving those points over to something else, like the upgraded Bountiful Interruption in Chaos.

athuria.2751:

It’ll be Illusionary Retribution—all shatter skills inflict confusion.

What would show that they have no intention to change the damage done by the confusion and/or the importance that now have the confusion condition for them. .

Tomorrow we’ll see.

In other news, it’ll at least be interesting to try an interrupt/daze/stun build after this patch. I tried it once before and it was not viable. Maybe now it will have legs.

The other thing that irks me (if implemented) is their change to Furious Interruption. While I know most mesmers don’t use that trait and probably consider it useless, I had theory-crafted a build to share (among other things) high duration fury. While quickness would be interesting, it’s only 3 seconds, 15 sec cool down, and not a boon that can be shared. I almost think it’s more “worthless” than the original.

Now if the quickness was AoE … there might be something there.

Also the updated description for the Bountiful Interruption change may not be as good as I originally thought. It doesn’t indicate an internal cool down, which I’m wondering about. But if there isn’t …. we will be able to stack/share might as good as any other class and maybe the best.

“introduce more viable build diversity”
Protected Mantras-seriously any one use this trait?
Illusionists Celerity-move to minor grandmaster, where is this introduce more viable build diversity thing?
where is Confusing Combatants fix? or Signet of Illusion fix?
how accurate is this note? the same as the last one?

Yeah… these “previews” … we’re getting all riled up over unverified, unofficial “leaks,” right? I’m still questioning their validity.

Time will tell!

ok if they move IC in gm line. i can try take phantasm haste (work weird still) but witch trait take first? nothing special here!!!
precise wrack – im not shatter
confusing cry – im not shatter
compounding power – i rarely use autoatack
masterful reflection – f4 use only when stomp
master of misdirection – im not glamor and not shatter
illusionary invigoration – im not shatter

Sinaya.4201:

Yeah… these “previews” … we’re getting all riled up over unverified, unofficial “leaks,” right? I’m still questioning their validity.

Time will tell!

They might be fake, but if so, someone has quite the sense of humor to muck with something as important as illusionist’s celerity in their ‘leaked’ patch notes.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Sinaya.4201:

Yeah… these “previews” … we’re getting all riled up over unverified, unofficial “leaks,” right? I’m still questioning their validity.

Time will tell!

They might be fake, but if so, someone has quite the sense of humor to muck with something as important as illusionist’s celerity in their ‘leaked’ patch notes.

Or giving some dangerous ideas to Anet.

:p

It may be fake, but lets be honest…

Who here hasn’t looked at Illusionists Celerity and said, “Wow. Thats… really beastly for 5 points.”

We got spoiled by it, but in a sense we shoulda saw this coming… but Grandmaster!? Not even Master!? wtf.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Who here hasn’t looked at Illusionists Celerity and said, “Wow. Thats… really beastly for 5 points.”

I looked at it and always said “Thank you for making half of our skills somewhat usable.”

Wouldn’t be a problem if clones/phant generating skill, our source of dmg…and utility..and decoy…and class mechanic didn’t have kittenely long CD’s.

RIP confusion/condition.
RIP phantasm builds.
RIP build diversity.

x/x/x/x/30 = mesmer spec.

While I admit Grandmaster is far more of an investment than I would’ve liked.. iCelerity was giving us a 20% cooldown on nearly all our skills with practically no investment, in addition to other weapon cooldown traits.

Its a really painful nerf, but more in line with other classes. Its not like we’re officially broken because we have to wait 2-6 seconds longer for some of our skills… but it does put increased importance on our other weapon-traits.

I’m with Chaos on this. Painful as it is, the trait “feels” like a grandmaster trait.

The issue is that up until this point, all balancing and design has been based off of mesmers having a 20% additional cooldown on all illusion summoning skills. Think back to early levels when you weren’t able to place those 5 points in illusions. Many of your skills feel clunky and slow.

This trait has been absolutely baseline for very nearly every mesmer build in the game. Taking it away doesn’t promote build diversity—-it just nerfs any non-shatter build that can’t be heavily modified to take 25 points in illusions.

If the purpose for this change is to increase build diversity, then it’s the absolute worst idea imaginable. If, on the other hand, the devs really feel that all non-shatter builds need what equates to a 20% nerf…then that’s a different argument that needs to be had.

Hyung.6140:

athuria.2751:

It wouldn’t even be that big of a punch of it was something that only hit Phantasm recharges but IC affects so much more (Phase Retreat, iLeap which remember is buggy as kitten, Mirror Blade, etc), so it punches our main mechanic and a lot of our weapon’s utility by stretching them out. Anyone using Decoy (Or Mirror Images, if anyone not a shatter build does that) just got a longer CD on it as well.

Yep, I absolutely agree. It’s more than a straight up damage nerf. 5 points in Illusions was always a complete necessity for mesmers, now 25 points in Illusions is a necessity.

Yay diversity! \o/

athuria.2751:

shimmerless.4560:

It probably wasn’t intended that you’d get fantastic uptime on phants without speccing into Illusions. My real worry is that Celerity is still too integral to the class because almost all of our weapon skills and utils are tied to clones.

If only the Illusions line wasn’t otherwise by and large useless for Phantasms. Even Haste is a give or take since it doesn’t even work properly on a lot of them. \o/

Exactly. There’s a reason most phant builds only go 5 into Illusions. Putting 25 into Illusions basically means it’s not a phant build anymore…

I have a mesmer which I’ve played extensively and I’ve never had to put any points into illusions. I think it’s a trait that is overrated, and the other trait lines have so much potential if you look outside the box.

I haven’t played WvW though, maybe it’s different there?

shimmerless.4560:

It probably wasn’t intended that you’d get fantastic uptime on phants without speccing into Illusions

Why? Illusions is the trait line for builds where you shatter illusions and don’t care about their uptime

Anyone else notice how we get the most ridiculous nerfs?

Confusion Nerf, Haste nerf (universal, but still), Celerity Nerf, iZerker Nerf(Anet: Guys.. zerker is fine! =D)

Its almost as if you don’t want to look at the patch notes every month if you’re a Mesmer…

And what happened to Prismatic Understanding buff?!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Its a really painful nerf, but more in line with other classes. Its not like we’re officially broken because we have to wait 2-6 seconds longer for some of our skills… but it does put increased importance on our other weapon-traits.

It is a much larger loss than you think. With cooldowns of 12 seconds on your two weapon sets a phantasm mesmer would use this rotation:
phantasm #1
swap weapon
phantasm #2
wait 12 seconds… phantasm #2
swap weapon
phantasm #1
wait 12 seconds… phantasm #1
swap weapon
phantasm #2
over and over…

The result was 2 phantasms every 12 seconds.
Using the same weapon swap logic we now get 2 phantasms every 16 seconds, or a 33% nerf in phantasms per second. Under the new logic you will be waiting for the 48 second mark in a fight to unleash your third salvo of phantasms, previously it took just 36 seconds. Make no mistake, this is a huge nerf to phantasm builds.

I once did a lot of maths to come to the conclusion that is is absolutely essential for a phantasm build to have both the weapon trait AND illusionist’s celerity in order to maximise phantasms per second. For this reason I only ever used 10/30/0/25/5 with sw/sw + sw/pi, or 0/20/20/25/5 with sw/sw and staff.

Shatter vs phantasm was an even tossup prior to this. Those extra 4-6 seconds on the phantasms make this a nobrainer for me, it’s back to shatter I go. If shatter is nerfed next patch to complete the nerfing of every single decent mesmer spec I’ll swap mains.

Is SoI still being fixed? If so, while it still sucks that phant output will be a little slower, I’m not all that upset since our uptime on phants will be significantly increased.

@fadeaway: You’re definitely right. The question is, would you have rathered this or a flat damage nerf?

The 1v1 masses have been roaring for a nerf to phantasms, so Anet had to do something. That 12 second difference is nuts though… but, on the brightside, Phantasms should be lasting longer with Signet of Illusions working properly.

athuria.2751:

“The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHH

WOW, this ^ sums it up. I’m a little shell shocked right now, must start drinking.