Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, I have been looking through these posts and some other sites to see what the mesmers feel about the class after the April 15th update, but it seems too scattered so I was hoping that by asking I can get some answers. (I am recently returning to GW2 and wanted to pick up my mesmer again).

Here are a few of the pointers I’d like some light on.

How will the Crit Damage change (ferocity) affect the Mesmer?

How will the Mesmer be affected with the new way sigils work?

While some classes have some really nice changes like the necromancer to currently skills/traits, the Mesmer seems to be receiving for the most part “bug fixes” what are your thoughts on this?

How do you feel about the new GM Traits?

…To round up everything overall how do you feel the Mesmer will play after the update in each category; PvE, PvP, WvW. Discuss away, the more information the better.

The crit damage change will have a fairly big impact on my phantasm build. I’m trying to decide if I should try to adjust by increasing damage or by increasing survivability (and just accept that it will take longer to kill someone). That decision mostly comes down to sigils and food because, right now, I don’t anticipate changing my build.

On sigils, I’m tempted to go energy and battle in both sets now. I would give up bloodlust stacks, so that would be yet more power loss.

I’ve been experimenting with life steal food, and I’m curious about trying to use this plus life steal sigils to see if I can simultaneously help damage a little and increase survivability a little.

I’m happy to see the bug fixes. I think that’s what mesmers needed the most. I’m a little disappointed that none of the new GM traits have really triggered any theorycrafting ideas for me – none of them seem interesting for builds I want to try right now (partially that’s because I’ve invested so much in creating all ascended gear and weapons towards a power-crit style). After the direct questions about scepter posted by the devs, I had hoped to see some change there.

I really only play WvW. Overall, I think I’ll be a bit weaker compared to where I was versus other classes. I think I’ll approach fights with Ele’s and Rangers a little more cautiously after this patch. I’m glad that my build hasn’t (apparently) been significantly nerfed. I kind of wish there was something more for me to try out than one or two new sigils. But I’m happy that the gear I spent so much time working on and the build I like now both seem like they are viable going forward.

I can only speak for how I think some changes will affect me:

iElasticity on staff clones is going to be a nice little benefit, even though I don’t play a condition build – more bounce means more boons and every little bit of bleeding/vuln/burn always helps.

Crit damage will be sad – might have to swap out some toughness gear for more zerker – assuming required armour thresholds to take the odd inevitable backstab will be lower, so can get away with less defence.

Sigils and runes – I have absolutely no idea. Might drop fire if damage is nerfed too much, maybe go energy + generosity… really can’t guess, just have to wait and see.

Anything else will also likely have to wait and see. Most likely my trait allocation will be remaining the same – 10(1)/30(1,4,10)/0/0/30(3,7,11). None of the new GM traits (while they are interesting) are likely to make me change.