Guild Wars 2

How have the new traits affected the class? Are we better or worse? Which builds are op and which builds became garbage? Did the patch put Mesmer in a better place overall?

Too many Mesmer nerfs.

Condie Shatter removed as a viable build choice.

Otherwise, having a blast! Power Shatter is amazing now. You can be both tough to kill, or supportive to your team, and can still put out good damage.

Overall, a good patch for Mesmers, but the Daily Mesmer Nerf is starting to really get very discouraging, especially when most other classes simple remain untouched; seemingly no matter how stupid they are.

It’s good patch for Mesmer but WAY too much complaining is going to cause us to get nerfed into the ground because on simple traits like PU are trolling low tier PvP’ers and with the recent changes to stats damage is and I quote “too high”. But it’s comparable just about every other class. Heck I saw a guardian last night burst down two thieves instantly, it was hilarious.
And I hate OP. It’s tossed around so much like a hot potato without people thinking about what their actually complaining about.

In spite of condi build nerfs, I still play it in WvW (I don’t “PvP”) and elsewhere. It’s fun trying to stack as much confusion as possible to see how much it hits for.

What would be fan-freaking-tastic is if they fixed Malicious Sorcery. For once fix a bug for our benefit.

Oh and give back old MtD somehow!

I play condi shatter and honestly its perfectly fine once you realize our main damage source is confusion and torment is supplementary.

I feel like one massive indirect buff that people aren’t talking about is the fact that burst thieves, our biggest counter, got nerfed. Yes, the nerf to Chaotic Dampening and MtD are disappointing, but as a whole we are in a much, much better place than we were pre-patch. As long as we don’t get nerfed again I think we’re good.

@Kaseus
But if mesmers can’t stack torment to annoy people, who can?
I do agree 2 stacks/shatter was too high, but 1 is not enough.
I am looking forward to chronomancer for the super-speed shatter. That would be a fun way to wreck people who are trying to escape. Our clones will be able to reach them and then, escaping with torment should be fun

The amount of kitten over interrupt Mesmer traits being viable in all of our builds is absolutely silly. It was fine when we were under-powered and unable to really take advantage of our interrupts, but now that we can people can’t seem to tell the difference between some newbie mesmer throwing out dazes like candy and someone intentionally interrupting specific skills.

I think that Prismatic Understanding and Confounding Suggestions could afford to have their potency tuned down somewhat. Dazes are something almost entirely unique to mesmer; and people really, really hate being totally disabled and helpless. As for PU – pretty much what Jace said.

Honestly, I’d be all on board if not for the knee-jerk nerfs all over the place. Hell, with what two classes I mainline … it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride.

What ticks me off the most is that the nerf-a-thon started the same. frigging. DAY. as the patch. Seriously, why not wait a month or two, then see what parts of the tree need pruned.

It’s one thing to … trim a trait or ability (Power Block, for example), it’s another entire to chainsaw it down (Hello, MtD!), or just plain out remove the bleeding thing (Confusing Combatants and my Thief’s Ricochet would like to talk to you).

We have always fought things like stunlock warriors, engineers and the CC abilities of the coming dragonhunter seems very scary also. But if mesmers can do it then everyone complains. Landing an interrupt is not always easy, since only our mantra is really fast to cast. And there are counters to it, like stability.

Before: good mesmers crush me, bad mesmers get rekt, the way CI phantspam builds stack four conditions on one interrupt (covering the immobilize) annoys me, killing thieves requires pretty much perfect play, I play a weird build nobody else likes.

After: good mesmers crush me at about the same speed as before, bad mesmers get rekt even faster, the way CI phantspam builds stack five conditions on one interrupt (covering the immobilize so you die fast) annoys me, I can punish thieves’ mistakes as hard as they can punish mine, I play a weird build nobody else likes.

Honestly, the biggest difference for me — since I didn’t take IP before so my shatters were weak and harder to time — is that now when I fight someone doing something stupid, I feel like I always have a way to hurt them instead of having to poke and prod and hope an accumulation of mistakes on their part will allow me to triumph.

One nice thing is that PU and Mimic+Veil mean I can play most of the open world like a fractal skip.

Mesmer nerfs: 4
Other class nerfs: 2

Anet: “Enginades and burn stacks are bugged? Better nerf Mesmer”

10/10 – IGN

They will probably overnerf us.
After the meta develops and gets stabilized, we will struggle again.

Except for condi mes to be worse than pre patch, even in PvE (wich I honestly don’t care about since …) THIS WAS THE BEST PATCH EVER! We finally got the buffs we deserved, we finally feel like what we expected when we first created our lv1 mes on release!

I hope they won’t break us again :/

From a PvP perspective, Nerfs are definitely incoming. Not so much because Anet really hates us, but because certain aspects of every class are definitely over the top right now.

1) Confounding Suggestions will almost definitely be toned down. Hopefully, they will just give it a higher (per target) ICD and not overnerf it.

2) PU change was idiotic to begin with. It was the one of the most brainless and complained about traits in the mesmer’s kitten nal, and they made it even more obnoxious. Defenders of this trait ought to think back to the pre-patch days when the “guessing game” with stealth bursts (which we almost always lost) was one of the main reasons why the mesmer vs thief matchup was extremely frustrating. No reason to foist this upon every matchup in the game now.
The increased stealth duration will hopefully be sharply reduced, together with some corresponding change to increase the group support provided by this trait (eg. decreased to +1sec stealth, but allies benefit from the boon ticks in stealth as well).

3) Damage across all classes will probably be toned down. 11k+ backstabs, insta-gibs to burning and almost 1 shotting people with mirror blade + mind wrack are quite unhealthy for build diversity.

4) Some bugs like blind on shatter going through evades will probably be fixed.

Overall, patch has been very good for us. Some changes are in order, but hopefully Anet will not overdo it. As for the changes that already happened, MtD change was harsh but arguably warranted. Chaotic dampening change was not. Needs to be increased back up to 3-4% a tick.

Devs should just ignore PvP forum where 90% of the complaints have no logic behind it.

I’m still struggling to find and compare builds. I mostly do group WvW and a lot has changed.

Standard power shatter remains quite powerful in many situations. Still tough to actually land a good shatter.

Condi shatter seems to be better than ever and conditions remain quite strong. Stronger than power? not sure yet.

Surprisingly loving interrupt builds, though it makes me sad to see them lose their potential in PvE encounters (can’t wait for defiance bar). Focused on a power interrupt build now, but had a blast with condition interrupt focused around Mistrust .

Jury’s still out on Inspiration. Feels powerful on paper- lots of condi cleanse, group support. I have a hard time telling if I’m actually helping my team or if the randomness and small one-off numbers/cleanses are just getting lost in the noise of wvw battles. Is Healing Prism a super-star, or am I wasting a trait line to nullify 1/3 of an auto-attack’s damage every 10 seconds?

In general, it feels like a lot of new builds really became possible. In practice, I think it’ll settle down to 1-3 new ones. I’m hoping to find out what those are for WvW and enjoy them until the Chronomancer shows up.

Selya.5039:

2) PU change was idiotic to begin with. It was the one of the most brainless and complained about traits in the mesmer’s kitten nal, and they made it even more obnoxious. Defenders of this trait ought to think back to the pre-patch days when the “guessing game” with stealth bursts (which we almost always lost) was one of the main reasons why the mesmer vs thief matchup was extremely frustrating. No reason to foist this upon every matchup in the game now.
The increased stealth duration will hopefully be sharply reduced, together with some corresponding change to increase the group support provided by this trait (eg. decreased to +1sec stealth, but allies benefit from the boon ticks in stealth as well).

I still cannot for the life of me understand why they nerfed Chaotic Dampening and not PU.

Stormbolt.7293:

I still cannot for the life of me understand why they nerfed Chaotic Dampening and not PU.

Hmm, I think a nerf was needed, but as usual Anet choose the Machete over a Scalpel as their balancing tool.

3% would have been reasonable and on the safe-side, while 4% is reasonable but also still a bit strong. These silly new ways of cutting down CDs are simply too hard to balance properly. Just go back to 20% for all of these, looking at you there Torch Trait!, and be DONE with it! Fess up to the fact that it was a bad idea and move on!

Kelthien.8593:

Jury’s still out on Inspiration. Feels powerful on paper- lots of condi cleanse, group support. I have a hard time telling if I’m actually helping my team or if the randomness and small one-off numbers/cleanses are just getting lost in the noise of wvw battles. Is Healing Prism a super-star, or am I wasting a trait line to nullify 1/3 of an auto-attack’s damage every 10 seconds?

I think the trick with Inspiration is to play selfishly and aggressively.

Mender’s Purity lets you just eat a condi bomb that could kill someone else. Phantasmal Defender protects you from a burst. You get a lot of incidental value for your teammates as well, but as long as you draw lots of attention to yourself so you can soak up nasty stuff, how much you’re healing the party is a secondary concern at most.

Kelthien.8593:

Jury’s still out on Inspiration. Feels powerful on paper- lots of condi cleanse, group support. I have a hard time telling if I’m actually helping my team or if the randomness and small one-off numbers/cleanses are just getting lost in the noise of wvw battles. Is Healing Prism a super-star, or am I wasting a trait line to nullify 1/3 of an auto-attack’s damage every 10 seconds?

I sPVP quite a bit and regular check to see what other mesmers are running. I would say out of maybe 50 mesmer’s I’ve inspected, roughly 10-15% percent have Inspiration as one of their traits (rather low) with the majority still running the old Dom/Duel/Illusions builds (roughly 40% estimate). I’d say Chaos is a bit more popular than Inspiration also from what I’ve observed.

In the ESL weekly cup, I believe Helseth used the old Dom/Duel/Illusions lines and the mesmer he went up against used a Dom/Duel/Inspiration build.

If you’re running against a condi heavy team and you don’t have a team that’s supporting you with cleanses, then I think Inspiration is definitely needed for the cleanses.

I’m loving Inspiration for sPVP right now mainly for the condi-cleanses but also because MoR is instant cast and you can use it to break out of Fear/Immobilizes, cast it while casting another spell, spam it while rezzing a down player, etc. (Also the changes to Mantra charging means that you can always have full charges ready before engaging in a fight.) It provides a little bit of group support in the build I use but is not as effective as other classes ability to support the group. I’m not sure what the radius is for the heals/condi cleanses but it seems rather small so that’s one limiting factor.

Overall I’m happy. However, the old Sharper Images + loss of Confusing Combatants really really stings, and removed multiple builds I wanted to try, one now and a few after Chrono comes out.

Huge shame they dropped the ability to do condi at all without shatter, especially because power can still be played without going full shatter spec.

I think Mesmer is in a great place for several reasons:

• More options for survivability that don’t completely kitten our dps (Blinding Dissipation, Signets, the entire Inspiration line, reflects, MoR CD change, NullField 32s)
• Thief not hard countering us anymore (Praise Lyssa for Blinding Dissipation)
• IP being baseline.
• Interrupt traits being easier to take within builds, thus giving us more ability to disrupt enemies like we were always meant to do. Oh, and obviously PU for those choosing that route! lol

I’m happy to see that build diversity is an actual thing. I’m currently running 3 builds at the moment that have all been extremely successful in both ranked team play and ranked solo play:

“Hermetic Inscriptions” i.e. Support Signets: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-RZ-Fc;0k2l61S7cWF71;9;4SUV;0048156237;42xlFU;1rRnCrRnC3r
Signets Power Shatter: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Rg-FR;0k2l61y6gWF71;9;4STW;0047238037;4INlBC;1jzyvjzyv5P
Condi Shatter: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R3SZ;1VPV1187wW-71;9;4UTW;0258238056;4TwW6U;1hoHAhoHA2G

In terms of our relation to other professions:

• Guard: Our biggest counter. Whether I’m on my tank, shatter or condi, guard is always the class I’m worried most about. Their burns are insane. Their dmg is buffed, so they eat through our clones more so than they did more.
• Ele: Diamond skin completely shuts down condi specs. They have even more sustain and ability to clear condis than they did before.
• Engineer: I haven’t seen a single turret engi. They’re all currently exploiting their one trick pony grenade barrage. If you can dodge it, then they are easy as heck to beat. Just keep distance. I’m most interested in seeing how this match up develops over the next month.
• Warrior: Don’t usually have trouble, but they have a lot of sustain. Definitely a brawler. Even match up for the most part.
• Ranger: lol I haven’t run into a few condi specs that are super threatening, but if they’re dps, they’re trash at this point.
• Thief: they now only have a 60% success rate against us instead of the usual 90% thanks to Blinding Dissipation (and Ineptitude as well). And without being an over-buffed class, most thieves aren’t very skilled imo. I’ve had no issue whatsoever with them thus far because of this.
• Necro: Before we countered them. Now I think the match up is more even now. They still are susceptible to to interrupts more so than other classes.

Regarding SPvP: This will not last, Guardians and Warriors die, they will nerf mesmers into the ground, it has already started.

Regarding WvW: Same as above.

Mesmers have builds other then all out shatter and viable strategies other than pop everything on the opener and then hope that some guardin can ress you now, this will not last enjoy it while you can you got another week at best.

Generally pretty good. Loving the stealth duration of PU in WvW as now 1 veil really will let you surprise a Zerg instead of appearing near or needing additional veils.

The buffs to phantasms for PvE and the rework of mantras is great on that front and a much needed change.

PvP people are complaining the most.

Most classes are better off in general than they were pre patch but there’s been a fair bit of stat inflation on classes that used to have 300 points in places they didn’t want.

Still only engineer gets a half decent counter to stealth which is using utility goggles toolbelt skill if you happen to hit a stealthed player. With stealth being on Rangers, thief, engineer, Mesmer and soon to be guardians I would like it if there was a real counter to stealth.

The guardian trap in dragon hunter is a step in the right direction but there needs to be a bit more of that kind of stuff to provide real counter play to stealth, then maybe people will stop whining about PU and thief.

Edit: Typos, Apple I hate your idea of British English.

Well here we are almost a week after patch and from what I have saw since then was fixing skills and traits to what their supposed to do, but the only nerf’s so far was 4 of them targeted at *rum roll please MESMER! Thank you Anet I think we need to come up with awards each year and I would say the Nerf Bat Award goes to Mesmer.

MailMail.6534:

In terms of our relation to other professions:

• Guard: Our biggest counter. Whether I’m on my tank, shatter or condi, guard is always the class I’m worried most about. Their burns are insane. Their dmg is buffed, so they eat through our clones more so than they did more.

Do you use Inspiration in any of your builds? Inspiration counters their burns quite nicely.

PU – duration needs to be reduced. But the “least” thing that should be done is: REMOVE the “might” boon.

Stealth is a HUGE advantage, you shouldn’t be able to make yourself even stronger (stacking “might”) while stealthed.

How do mesmer stack might while stealthed? i really want know this so i can counter instant engi nades of death

Hlord.5940:

How do mesmer stack might while stealthed? i really want know this so i can counter instant engi nades of death

The engie nades of death should be getting a fix. Until then, distortion, blink, and instant stuns are what I have been using to counter the engi stealth > barrage > combo.

To answer your question though, I think the might stacking others have mentioned is just the random might stacks you get while stealthed from PU.

Ok, I’m confused. How did condition builds get nerfed, aside from MtD? I am doing more and consistent condition damage than I did before the update.

Note: I only do PvE, and dungeons. I honestly haven’t done PvP or WvW, and have little interest in it tbh.

Leodon.1564:

MailMail.6534:

In terms of our relation to other professions:

• Guard: Our biggest counter. Whether I’m on my tank, shatter or condi, guard is always the class I’m worried most about. Their burns are insane. Their dmg is buffed, so they eat through our clones more so than they did more.

Do you use Inspiration in any of your builds? Inspiration counters their burns quite nicely.

In my tanky support signet build, I do. Guardian still kills my clones which cuts down on my boons and aoe healing. It’s not fair! #CryOfFrustration In that build specifically, I can actually down a guardian if I get the reflect off of his whirling blades, but that’s hard to do in the thick of battle when I’m trying to support my team and get interrupts for the boons.

Honestly, it’s just going to be a weird transition not having to worry about thieves but instead worrying a lot about guardians.

Am I going crazy or is Mirror Blade missing might stacks? I can never generate more than 6 might on bounce even when it generates 9 vulnerability on target.

Besetment.9187:

Am I going crazy or is Mirror Blade missing might stacks? I can never generate more than 6 might on bounce even when it generates 9 vulnerability on target.

No, that’s working correctly.

“Number of Bounces: 4”
Count them…
Initial: hits target (3 vuln.)
Bounce 1: bounces to you (3 might)
Bounce 2: hits target (6 vuln. total)
Bounce 3: bounces to you (6 might total)
Bounce 4: hits target (9 vuln. total)

Have been roaming a bit.
PU is really strong now. But I hardly see our damage too strong.
I came across a couple rangers who have the trait that gives you weakness grant themselves protection when they are hit. It’s really strong defensive trait.
The only reason I could come out on top is because of PU.

Nerfing mesmer damage is unwarranted. If damage is nerf’ed, people can go for defensive traits to negate a lot of your damage effort.

Best time in GW2 yet, love this patch. So many great changes.

I think it is a little wild that people can take dom/duel/chaos and get PU plus full shatter burst, haven’t done it myself but expect nerfs due to this.

I think it’s insane for anyone to complain about a build based around interrupting skills, as it’s just a fact of this game that consistently landing interrupts is hard and is only “spammable” against a spammy opponent. I expect most complaints are from people complaining about the above PU shatter build who just take CS and MoD for extra lolz.

Inspiration is a great line. I don’t really care if PU get’s nerfed, I think dmg should be toned down across the board and not just mesmers; we don’t deserve any dmg nerfs alone.

I think CS could use an increased ICD as has been suggested, and PU, well, I don’t really care as I don’t play it myself and don’t really mind fighting it.

I’m testing a build currently and having a really great time, but sadly don’t want to post anything about what I’m doing because I think nerfs are still incoming and so am laying low for now :P

Edit: Has malicious sorcery been fixed? Can’t tell if I’m seeing an increase in attack speed, I think not still.

Besetment.9187:

Am I going crazy or is Mirror Blade missing might stacks? I can never generate more than 6 might on bounce even when it generates 9 vulnerability on target.

4 bounces.

• Enemy
• Friendly
• Enemy
• Friendly
• Enemy

Makes for 9 Vulnerability and 6 Might.

Stormbolt.7293:

How have the new traits affected the class? Are we better or worse? Which builds are op and which builds became garbage? Did the patch put Mesmer in a better place overall?

Lets see, I look at a mesmer at around 1500 – 2k distance. He stealths. a couple of seconds later I get 1 shotted.

So, I look at combat log: 3xhits of around 5k each. Also, That ability is unblockable. This happened 3 times in a row until i decided to exit wvw.

Are you guys kittenting me or what?

Unblockable for you because you failed to dodge or stun break and dodge. You stood still and ate it. Same thing happens to all Beserker classes. Stand still let a ranger pepper you. let a warrior hundred blades you. You put on a shirt protector and went 3 times to that buffet.

denis.9487:

Unblockable for you because you failed to dodge or stun break and dodge. You stood still and ate it. Same thing happens to all Beserker classes. Stand still let a ranger pepper you. let a warrior hundred blades you. You put on a shirt protector and went 3 times to that buffet.

Which part can you not understand that you can’t dodge instant 1200 distance abilities that happen from stealth? Unless they start dodging like a kitten until they run out of endurance?

Also what part can you not understand that a mesmer can stealth, blink to enter the 1200 zone and 1 shot?

Because if you are suggesting that we should stay farther that 2000 from a mesmer when we see one, then i rest my case. You win

Ath.2531:

denis.9487:

Unblockable for you because you failed to dodge or stun break and dodge. You stood still and ate it. Same thing happens to all Beserker classes. Stand still let a ranger pepper you. let a warrior hundred blades you. You put on a shirt protector and went 3 times to that buffet.

Which part can you not understand that you can’t dodge instant 1200 distance abilities that happen from stealth? Unless they start dodging like a kitten until they run out of endurance?

Also what part can you not understand that a mesmer can stealth, blink to enter the 1200 zone and 1 shot?

Because if you are suggesting that we should stay farther that 2000 from a mesmer when we see one, then i rest my case. You win

The Mesmer just used all thier defensive utilities…in fact possibly all their utilities to do that, had you been watching and waiting to hit your stun break you could have stun break then dodged and the Mesmer would have been a sitting duck. The Mesmer would then have been forced to switch weapons and either stealth away with torch or continue to kite with staff.

Conditions would destroy this kind of mesmer as they usually don’t have inspiration. What class were you playing, perhaps there’s some advice that can be offered for you to not only not die to these fotm mesmers but turn the tables and wreck.

apharma.3741:

Ath.2531:

denis.9487:

Unblockable for you because you failed to dodge or stun break and dodge. You stood still and ate it. Same thing happens to all Beserker classes. Stand still let a ranger pepper you. let a warrior hundred blades you. You put on a shirt protector and went 3 times to that buffet.

Which part can you not understand that you can’t dodge instant 1200 distance abilities that happen from stealth? Unless they start dodging like a kitten until they run out of endurance?

Also what part can you not understand that a mesmer can stealth, blink to enter the 1200 zone and 1 shot?

Because if you are suggesting that we should stay farther that 2000 from a mesmer when we see one, then i rest my case. You win

The Mesmer just used all thier defensive utilities…in fact possibly all their utilities to do that, had you been watching and waiting to hit your stun break you could have stun break then dodged and the Mesmer would have been a sitting duck. The Mesmer would then have been forced to switch weapons and either stealth away with torch or continue to kite with staff.

Conditions would destroy this kind of mesmer as they usually don’t have inspiration. What class were you playing, perhaps there’s some advice that can be offered for you to not only not die to these fotm mesmers but turn the tables and wreck.

I did not stun break because i was simply not stunned. I was just 1 shotted from stealth. That same mesmer was fighting 3-4 people at once and consistently stealthed away when he was in trouble, so yes it is quite possible he used torch.

I was playing a Valor/Virtues/Zeal guardian with GS/Hammer or staff. Again, my point isnt that i couldnt beat him. Its that i was killed instantly without being able to react. At one point i saw him and tried to run but he repeated the same process, probably also blinked to reach me and 1 shotted me again.

Ath.2531:

I did not stun break because i was simply not stunned. I was just 1 shotted from stealth. That same mesmer was fighting 3-4 people at once and consistently stealthed away when he was in trouble, so yes it is quite possible he used torch.

I was playing a Valor/Virtues/Zeal guardian with GS/Hammer or staff. Again, my point isnt that i couldnt beat him. Its that i was killed instantly without being able to react. At one point i saw him and tried to run but he repeated the same process, probably also blinked to reach me and 1 shotted me again.

No offense, but guardian is the biggest counter to Mesmer post-revamp from my vantage point and experience. I don’t know what exactly you’re doing wrong here besides picking the most in-opportune moments to engage or disengage. Even on a bunkerish build, you should be able to destroy clones pretty easily with one whirl of your GS. And Balthazaar forbid you actually use burns…

You can see a mirror blade flying towards you. It is actually a learn to play issue. Granted might be a little hard but after the first time you should have been prepared. Again l2p.

You can see the GS coming from stealth on mirror blade, it’s unblockable and they probably blinked to you straight after stealthing. Learn the pattern by watching him do it with others and you know to dodge about 1/2 to 1s after they stealth. The mirror blade will miss and chances are they will waste a shatter too doing minimal damage.

However one thing is worth pointing out. Nothing they are doing now in that combo is different to what they were doing pre-patch. If they were within blink range when they stealthed then they didn’t even need PU to extend stealth nor would it improve it. Only thing that has really changed is IP being baseline, the extra bounce is baseline and the range on blink. Most mesmers would have picked them anyway and still done the same thing.

Counter it by using burns to your advantage, they stack very high and will wreck him into running. These kinds of stealth nukers are very predictable and when you get their timing down they will no longer be a threat.

Another (high cool down) option is to wait with your finger on renewed focus and use it as soon as you see your health take a hit, you’ll negate all the burst and can get the VoJ active buff while keeping the passive to turn on him.

A thief will do the same to you, only difference is a good one you won’t even see coming.

apharma.3741:

A thief will do the same to you, only difference is a good one you won’t even see coming.

Don’t forget a Thief doesn’t have to blow their utilities/elite to do this either …