Guild Wars 2

So I am relatively new to mesmer and have been messing around with the torch in both pve and pvp and noticed a problem:

Functionally the individual abilities arent so bad, but they don’t really work well with any weapon!

The prestige deals its damage in a radius around yourself, encouraging it’s use in close quarters. The problem is that it deals condition damage, and the MH sword that you’d use up close and personal has no conditions built in, so you have a kitten skill set that isn’t specific to any one damage type.

The solution: The prestige now causes the flameburst around the target of your next successful attack out of stealth, only centering on you if the stealth wears off naturally or if you’re kicked out of it.

TP is more useful for the stealth it provides and the blast finisher if there is a field down than for the damage it does honestly.

When you take the Chaos line and trait PU, you get 4.5 sec stealth out of TP, along with some boons. The blast finisher provides 3 sec of area chaos armor if you blast an ethereal field, which mesmer has loads of access to. That, taken with the chaotic dampening trait (also in the chaos traitline), provides loads of protection uptime as well as decreases staff weapon cooldowns significantly.

What I’m trying to show is that the damage from this skill is not the main reason to be using it. But the phantasm on torch definitely needs to be buffed imo

Devoneaux.6302:

The prestige deals its damage in a radius around yourself, encouraging it’s use in close quarters. The problem is that it deals condition damage, and the MH sword that you’d use up close and personal has no conditions built in, so you have a kitten skill set that isn’t specific to any one damage type.

The solution: The prestige now causes the flameburst around the target of your next successful attack out of stealth, only centering on you if the stealth wears off naturally or if you’re kicked out of it.

There is both condition damage and direct damage, and the direct damage is nothing to sneeze at.

Bertrand.3057:

Devoneaux.6302:

The prestige deals its damage in a radius around yourself, encouraging it’s use in close quarters. The problem is that it deals condition damage, and the MH sword that you’d use up close and personal has no conditions built in, so you have a kitten skill set that isn’t specific to any one damage type.

The solution: The prestige now causes the flameburst around the target of your next successful attack out of stealth, only centering on you if the stealth wears off naturally or if you’re kicked out of it.

There is both condition damage and direct damage, and the direct damage is nothing to sneeze at.

I agree.

Now that they buffed the burn stacks I find Prestige does decent damage using Viper stats, and the burn covers any confusion/torment on the target. I often like to pop out of prestige in melee range without doing anything else as it usually baits a dodge given the visual effect can be confused with shatter in close quarters – which can then be followed up by unloading shatters. If they dodge Prestige then it’s good for you, if they don’t then it’s also good because they will take some damage.

So tbh I think Prestige is fine. iMage however still does need some help.

Even the iMage is a lot better then it has been pretty much the entire existence of the game. The projectile could use a bit more speed to make it a bit more reliable, and the bounces could really be eliminated and exchanged for a simple AoE DD+Burn+Buff effect centered around the target. (Same value would be fine really, would just be loads more reliable than the bounce, and hardly OPing.)

I agree on TP, one simply can not forget the potential to burst from stealth with it, so the AoE DD probably can’t be boosted much, as it can be stacked in a near instant power shatter combo doing 15k+ damage to a softer target.

I think TP does need it’s CD cut a bit more, considering the nerfs that PU took, I think this is not likely to be OPd. (Although traited Torch with PU has a very nice low CD, but unfortunately it’s pretty hard to trait the two together.)

Overall though, it’s also kinda nice for Condie builds to stack 5x Burn between TP and iMage on multiple targets…and then laying down the the Confusion + Torment bomb on top.

So yeah it’s not that Torch couldn’t use a small buff here or there, but overall I think it’s actually one of the more competitive OH choices we have as compared to Sword, Focus, and most of all Pistol.

If anything I’d want to slightly boost PU duration back up again and/or make the reliance on Inspiration for sustain & condie clears a little less drastic, which might be enough to make Chaos a more competitive option to Inspiration. (Example: Replace the Reflect in MoM in Chaos with a condie clear, or even PU could clear 1 condition on entering stealth. Fix Mirror of Anguish to be useful, and replace Chaotic Persistence with something a little more reliable and impactful for a GM minor. Illusionary Defense could also use a boost to be a more competitive choice. )

Just my 2 cents…