Guild Wars 2

I have been playing now for about a month and have decided on maining a mesmer (at least until necromancer minions AI is fixed) after getting another character to 80 and learning a lot about the game. However, I generally PvE and only do a little WvWvW.
I was very surprised that they didn’t split PvP/PvE skills, since I come from Guild Wars 1. It worked well enough there, and PvP is completely seperate from the rest of the game, it just seems logical to split them.
I hear some complaints about how the nerfs to mesmer to balance PvP really have hurt us for PvE. What were some of those? Besides splitting the skills, how would you have fixed some of these problems?

Despite many threads of Mesmer tears after nearly every patch, my PvE experience has improved since launch. Bug fixes have compensated for any losses from my standpoint.

I agree with Voodoo Tina, my PvE experience isnt worse off now than when I started my mesmer about a month after release. I did retire the mesmer while the whole “1-2 sec. before I attack” phantasm deal was happening, that made it rough but now its pretty decent.

The only pvp nerf that hit my experience was the Portal CD nerf. I used to use the skill as an evasion tool and to reposition on large boss fights or when kiting a zerg, but the 90s CD is just not worth it anymore. It clearly was not OP in PVE; it was just fun, but it paid the cost for spvp issues/whiners.

Other than that, changes to my PVE experience are largly unnoticed. Maybe a few more “obstructed” texts on my screen, but not too often to cause any real problems.

Other examples include:
-Nerf to Shattered strength
-Blind (and blocks + evades) stops summoning illusions
-Moa morph have skills that makes it less useful in dungeons (several enemies are more dangerous if they have been transformed)

Big picture, shatter strength has been buffed.
Auto attacking removes blind from yourself.

The ones that I remember had an impact on my PvE game:

- Portal longer CD time (for a while, I actually did kite 3 mobs, lay portal and jump between to evade. Now just used in JP).

- iMage confusion duration reduction (down to 3 sec now, more often then not, iMage’s attack locks in when mob doesn’t do any skill, torch is near useless compared to other weapons)

In WvW, impacts are:

- Portal again (for obvious reasons)

- Blind nullifies illusion skills (I have a very difficult time solo a camp, especially a fully upgraded one. them scouts and auto-blind)

Portal CD nerf was the bitter one. The CD was already fairly long for PvE purposes, hence it generally went unused outside of jumping puzzle or similar situations.

Now at 90s CD, it’s usually much faster to just run the distance again.

Increase in Phantasms recharges.
Increase in Portal recharge.
Blind, block, evade, obstructed bugs stopping us from summoning.
Increase in Chaos Storm recharge.
GCD on shatters.
Shattered Strength nerf.
Cooldown for Illusionary Membrane.
Moa becoming useless.

The delay in Phantasm attacks after spawning was for purely PvP reasons as well but between the trait that ‘fixed’ what we presumed was a bug and them deciding to change it in patch because we already have to fight through blind/dodge etc to get them out in the first place we fortunately don’t have to suffer that…for now.

Expect nerf to time warp and portal next patch because the bad players in PvP aren’t happy yet. Wouldn’t be surprised if anet finally caves under the whines and shatter damage eventually gets nerfed too.

Levetty.1279:

Increase in Phantasms recharges.
Increase in Portal recharge.
Blind, block, evade, obstructed bugs stopping us from summoning.
Increase in Chaos Storm recharge.
GCD on shatters.
Shattered Strength nerf.
Cooldown for Illusionary Membrane.
Moa becoming useless.

The delay in Phantasm attacks after spawning was for purely PvP reasons as well but between the trait that ‘fixed’ what we presumed was a bug and them deciding to change it in patch because we already have to fight through blind/dodge etc to get them out in the first place we fortunately don’t have to suffer that…for now.

Expect nerf to time warp and portal next patch because the bad players in PvP aren’t happy yet. Wouldn’t be surprised if anet finally caves under the whines and shatter damage eventually gets nerfed too.

Shatter and Time Warp need a nerf in pvp. Stop rationalizing.

They just need to split skills so PvE time warp and shatters are not affected.

Zenith.7301:

Levetty.1279:

Increase in Phantasms recharges.
Increase in Portal recharge.
Blind, block, evade, obstructed bugs stopping us from summoning.
Increase in Chaos Storm recharge.
GCD on shatters.
Shattered Strength nerf.
Cooldown for Illusionary Membrane.
Moa becoming useless.

The delay in Phantasm attacks after spawning was for purely PvP reasons as well but between the trait that ‘fixed’ what we presumed was a bug and them deciding to change it in patch because we already have to fight through blind/dodge etc to get them out in the first place we fortunately don’t have to suffer that…for now.

Expect nerf to time warp and portal next patch because the bad players in PvP aren’t happy yet. Wouldn’t be surprised if anet finally caves under the whines and shatter damage eventually gets nerfed too.

Shatter and Time Warp need a nerf in pvp. Stop rationalizing.

They just need to split skills so PvE time warp and shatters are not affected.

Time Warp hasn’t been nerfed YET but shattering has “the SS nerf” that we just got. And the GCD on all our shatter skills even tho they are all insta casts… Hmmmm .25 secs is pretty fast but not instant…

Zenith.7301:

Levetty.1279:

Increase in Phantasms recharges.
Increase in Portal recharge.
Blind, block, evade, obstructed bugs stopping us from summoning.
Increase in Chaos Storm recharge.
GCD on shatters.
Shattered Strength nerf.
Cooldown for Illusionary Membrane.
Moa becoming useless.

The delay in Phantasm attacks after spawning was for purely PvP reasons as well but between the trait that ‘fixed’ what we presumed was a bug and them deciding to change it in patch because we already have to fight through blind/dodge etc to get them out in the first place we fortunately don’t have to suffer that…for now.

Expect nerf to time warp and portal next patch because the bad players in PvP aren’t happy yet. Wouldn’t be surprised if anet finally caves under the whines and shatter damage eventually gets nerfed too.

Shatter and Time Warp need a nerf in pvp. Stop rationalizing.

They just need to split skills so PvE time warp and shatters are not affected.

Stop being bad at the game.

Seriously in beta Mesmers were considered one of the lower classes before all the bad players came in at launch.

To be honest, sPvP needs a split. I mean, away from GW2, into a separate game. That’d fix a ton of balance considerations, no?
It’s just too different a game mode, really.

Zenith.7301:

Shatter and Time Warp need a nerf in pvp. Stop rationalizing.

They just need to split skills so PvE time warp and shatters are not affected.

Even if ANet would nerf shatter and TW, people will still continue to whine about mesmers. They don’t even know how our class works, they don’t want to learn how to counter us.
Nerf shatters and you’ll see more condition bunker mesmers like Flimpy still destroying people in a 1 v 4.
What next?
“Scepter is OP, nerf it ANet !”

Seriously…

This is really a learn to play issue.

Yeah I know that feeling. My GF keeps raging about Mesmers too, due to how much damage we do and how you can’t ever find the right one.

I guess it takes a Mesmer to kill a Mesmer, because in turn I find it trivial to always target the right one.

Carighan.6758:

To be honest, sPvP needs a split. I mean, away from GW2, into a separate game. That’d fix a ton of balance considerations, no?
It’s just too different a game mode, really.

It would get that community away from this game as well so I support it.

Levetty.1279:

Zenith.7301:

Levetty.1279:

Increase in Phantasms recharges.
Increase in Portal recharge.
Blind, block, evade, obstructed bugs stopping us from summoning.
Increase in Chaos Storm recharge.
GCD on shatters.
Shattered Strength nerf.
Cooldown for Illusionary Membrane.
Moa becoming useless.

The delay in Phantasm attacks after spawning was for purely PvP reasons as well but between the trait that ‘fixed’ what we presumed was a bug and them deciding to change it in patch because we already have to fight through blind/dodge etc to get them out in the first place we fortunately don’t have to suffer that…for now.

Expect nerf to time warp and portal next patch because the bad players in PvP aren’t happy yet. Wouldn’t be surprised if anet finally caves under the whines and shatter damage eventually gets nerfed too.

Shatter and Time Warp need a nerf in pvp. Stop rationalizing.

They just need to split skills so PvE time warp and shatters are not affected.

Stop being bad at the game.

Seriously in beta Mesmers were considered one of the lower classes before all the bad players came in at launch.

Yeah, that’s why every spvp team MUST run a mesmer lol. You’re so good and everyone is soooo bad, what are the odss that you’re a special snowflake?

Zenith.7301:

Levetty.1279:

Zenith.7301:

Levetty.1279:

Increase in Phantasms recharges.
Increase in Portal recharge.
Blind, block, evade, obstructed bugs stopping us from summoning.
Increase in Chaos Storm recharge.
GCD on shatters.
Shattered Strength nerf.
Cooldown for Illusionary Membrane.
Moa becoming useless.

The delay in Phantasm attacks after spawning was for purely PvP reasons as well but between the trait that ‘fixed’ what we presumed was a bug and them deciding to change it in patch because we already have to fight through blind/dodge etc to get them out in the first place we fortunately don’t have to suffer that…for now.

Expect nerf to time warp and portal next patch because the bad players in PvP aren’t happy yet. Wouldn’t be surprised if anet finally caves under the whines and shatter damage eventually gets nerfed too.

Shatter and Time Warp need a nerf in pvp. Stop rationalizing.

They just need to split skills so PvE time warp and shatters are not affected.

Stop being bad at the game.

Seriously in beta Mesmers were considered one of the lower classes before all the bad players came in at launch.

Yeah, that’s why every spvp team MUST run a mesmer lol. You’re so good and everyone is soooo bad, what are the odss that you’re a special snowflake?

Let me try to rephrase what they said. The players that played in beta thought of ways to try and counter things…. Actively play/dodge/predict next move so on… Because there are more players now than in beta a lot of them seem to want it to be “i hit you for this much damage….” Now I stand here and you hit me for this much damage and we go back and forth until someone wins. The play style that accompanies the mesmer is a lot of moving repositioning getting into melee bursting getting out doing CC then ranging… Other players that are used to other games/mmos don’t like that. They want us to stand still and take our damage… Mesmer really does have a high skill cap and require alot of timing…

Here’s a more extensive list to answer the OP’s question:

Illusory membrane
A mainstay of bunker mesmers, arenanet is trying discourage bunker gameplay in tournements so they slapped a HUGE recharge on it. Mesmers can’t maintain protection now in PvE.

Illusory Berserker
Mesmer’s only skill capable of hitting targets at high elevations, was rather buggy though. People were using it to attack from concealled positions in sPvP and WvW, so it got kicked in the head.

Portal
Used to have no limit and 60 second cooldown, now 90 second/5 person limit because of it’s usefulness in sPvP for area control and for moving zergs in WvW.

Shattered strength
For a while had 3 stacks per shatter not 1 stack. This resulted in very deadly shatter spikes if specced for pure DPS resulting in much QQ in PvP, subsequently they kicked it in the head in PvE so now mesmer must choose between support or DPS they can’t tread a middleground.

Moa
Never a very useful skill in PvE, but the moa form received a significant buff to appease PvP complainers. Now it’s arguable if moa form actually makes a typical mob any less dangerous than it was in the first place.

Chaos armour
Had it’s cooldown increased because it’s a fantastic bunker skill and again, anet hates bunkers in PvP. Which means defensive skills in PvE can go suck a karka.

Pretty sure there’s others I’ve missed

Ryuujin.8236:

Portal
Used to have no limit and 60 second cooldown, now 90 second/5 person limit because of it’s usefulness in sPvP for area control and for moving zergs in WvW.

Portal isn’t limited to 5, it’s 20 down from unlimited, directly in the Patch Notes from Dec 14th and it hasn’t been adjusted since then. Also, it’s number of uses, so it could actually be less if someone ports away with it and then back. Lastly, we had hoped it would be reduced to 5 and it’s cooldown returned or reduced even further, but we know now that won’t change probably, which is unfortunate sadly. . . A different take on the change would be to set up the portal and when the mesmer that made it used it everyone in 600 range of the Mesmer was ported to the other location. (a totally new take on Portal bombing would be to port people from their zerg into yours! muahahahahahahahhaahah)