Guild Wars 2

In the interest of giving good feedback, and pointing out some problem-areas for the Devs, I am curious in everyone’s 5 least favorite major traits and 2 least favorite minor traits. I’ll kick us off.

Major:

• Rending Shatter(Domination IV) – Shatters causing vulnerability isn’t all that compelling.

• Retaliatory Shield(Dueling III) – We don’t have very high access to block, and Mesmers don’t do well taking damage to trigger the effect.

• Furious Interruption(Dueling XII) – Short duration quickness, long cooldown, and difficult activation condition.

• Dazzling Glamours (Illusions VIII) – Nerfed to uselessness, was only ever good as an abusive means to cause confusion.

• Phantasmal Haste (Illusions X) – In a bad location for splashing and barely works regardless.

Minor:

• Dazzling (Domination Master) – Boring and essentially a part 2 to the previous minor trait.

• Vengeful Images (Inspiration Adept) – Not a very good deterrent to killing phantasms, can potentially proc only once per death, and has a short duration.

My least favourite ones are the useless ones :P

• Chaotic revival – why does it even exist?
• Retaliating demise – why does it even exist?
• Blinding befuddlement – doesnt do anything
  *Confusing enchantments – meh
• Dazzling glamours – meh

Btw, retaliatory shield is pretty cool with prismatic understanding and a staff.

I once duelled a ranger with shortbow and warhorn, and retaliation was my #1 damage source, with 11k damage :P (on a condition build)

Ive heard stories about furious interruption being good, but cant personally get it to work.

Phantasmal haste is usefull for reflection with wardens, and also a significannr damage increase. I think it would make more sense to be in inspiration, though.

ViRiD.2784:

Major:

• Retaliatory Shield(Dueling III) – We don’t have very high access to block, and Mesmers don’t do well taking damage to trigger the effect.

You just thinking of sword and sceptre, all the Aegis you can proc counts towards this as well, Mimic can be an exceptional source to stack a high up time of retaliation and with the correct build as Allisah explained can be your main source of damage.(Retaliation scales of power).

ViRiD.2784:

Major:

• Furious Interruption(Dueling XII) – Short duration quickness, long cooldown, and difficult activation condition.

Situational trait for PvP and WvW, i like using it in dungeons as you can keep it on cooldown the whole time just by using sword #4 daze on bosses and mobs as they are easy victims to interrupts. Nice Dps increase.

Blurred Inscriptions: Signet builds are not viable and too costly (Master trait) to be used for 1 or 2 signets.
Cleansing Inscriptions: same as above
Retaliatory Demise: makes no sense
Masterful Reflections: Synergy with signets but not enough to waste for reasons above.

Thanks ANet for the great search function in this forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Vote-Underpowered-traits-skills/first#post2847059

Nretep.2564:

Thanks ANet for the great search function in this forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Vote-Underpowered-traits-skills/first#post2847059

My search never works :/

• Far-Reaching Manipulations – Good for blink mostly but the weakest of all traits in this position. Should be combined with Master of Manipulation.
• Retaliatory Demise – Whaaaat?
• Cleansing Inscriptions – Should be combined with Signet Mastery.
• Confusing Cry – I don’t know, the minor trait Illusionary Retribution (adds a cof to every shatter) seems to be a better buff to Cry of Frustration than this.
• Imbued Diversion – Not on Grandmaster level.

Some glamour traits better be combined, too.

Here’s my list.

1. Rataliatiory Demise – useless since you need downstate for that
2. Chaotic Revival – useless since you need downstate + rally for that
3. Rending Shatter – useless because it’s only one stack. also we stack vulnerability with dazzling…
4. Protected Mantras – makes no sense for me
5. Furious Interruption – far to weak for a grandmaster also it doesn’t affect illusions

Nretep.2564:

Thanks ANet for the great search function in this forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Vote-Underpowered-traits-skills/first#post2847059

Thats underpowered traits, these are least favorite ones xD

Majors

• Confounding Suggestions – even after the recent buff – feels rather underwhelming or at least redundant when looking at Chaotic Interruption. Some very skillful Mesmers seem to disagree on this one. So maybe that is just me.

• Furious Interruption has a way too short duration considering that it requires a successful interrupt. Other interrupt traits also come with short durations (boons/conditions) but they never require the Mesmer to additionally conduct any actions to provide a benefit. 3s is too short considering the effort made. I’d rather see 5s quickness on a longer cooldown. Maybe add Fury to it. Or maybe make it recharge weapon skills which interrupt with ICD. Would be great for e.g. Magic Bullet.

• Empowered Mantras, although pretty unimaginative, is not an unuseful trait per se but shows a huge disconnect to the concept of Mantras. It makes you not want to use your Mantras and essentially punishes you if you do so because you will lose your damage bonus. This actually is the concept of Signets, not Mantras. Get rid of this trait or make it do something else.

• Protected Mantras simply fails to be useful at all. It could be pretty nice in combination with Restorative Mantras but it isn’t. Yes, toughness helps when being exposed while channeling. Taking damage while channeling is not the main issue though. Being interrupted is. It would be much better if it provided Stability, projectile reflection or absorbtion or even just a short Aegis. Put an ICD on it to prevent abuse. It would be so easy to fix.

• Restorative Illusions isn’t worthy of being a GM trait. Shattered Conditions will always be more meaningful if a shatter Mesmer even considers going 30 points into Inspiration.

Minors

• Illusion of Vulnerability is so… meh. I see people mentioning Dazzling. Dazzling actually is fine because it is very easy to apply. IoV on the other hand is not. And still, it’s duration is a lot shorter. At least make the duration match the duration of Dazzling.

• Wastrels Punishment is pretty bad. And I’m not even sure if it is even working. If Confounding Suggestions got changed into something different, I could see it gain +x% daze duration.

The real issues

I feel that the issues Mesmers have can’t be pinned down to single traits. Their location is a big issue. Traits affecting specific skills (Mantras, Glamours, Signets) are way to spread out. And sometimes they just lack a meaningful interaction with the respective skills. Of course, this is just my humble personal opinion.

Glamours

Glamour traits are essentially useless besides Glamour Mastery. They got nerfed but never got changed into anything useful. The idea behind the traits are always meaningful. But I guess ANet did not manage to figure out a way to make them work without being too strong. The traits are also placed in very weird places. The placement might make sense when considering the theme of the respective trait line. But it does not make sense that they are placed in three different lines. E.g. Confusing Enchantments is placed on a Master level in Domination. Why? Because of the +Condition Duration? Weird. Although Glamours are class specific skills they are not a class mechanic. It is okay for shatter and illusion traits to be all over the trait lines because all Mesmers have access to them. That’s not the case for Glamours. Glamours also lack a Grandmaster trait.

Mantras

I already talked about Empowering and Protected Mantras. Besides that, Mantras also suffer because of a weird trait placement. What is Harmonious Mantras doing in Domination? It does not make any sense at all. Empowering Mantras could be replaced by Harmonious Mantras, making room for a new Grandmaster trait in Domination. Maybe move Imbued Diversion there? Or introduce a new Signet GM trait? I also want to mention Manta Mastery at this point. CD reduction usually is great. However, due to the design of Mantras it is not. It would make a lot more sense if it provided +x% chance to maintain a charge on use.

Signets

Signets traits are rather nice even though not very flashy. The placement is quite spread out which just isn’t that obivous because Signets lack a meaningful Grandmaster trait. I see the biggest issue in the traits not being powerful enough when not used in an all-Signet build. An all-Signet build, however, is very unappealing because of the Signets available to a Mesmer. The Signets themselves might be the main issue here.

Manipulations

Manipulations feel like “complementary” skills you won’t be able to create a build around. They also somehow lack a consistent “theme”. That might also be the reason for the lack of traits. It’s a bit sad but I would not know how to change it.

That’s weird, I use so many unliked traits. I mean I can understand they are underpowered.

As for my list, mostly in Chaos tree :

Adept:

Chaotic Revival : Gain Chaos Armor when you rally.

Retaliatory Demise : Gain retaliation when you are downed.

Major (Master?):

Mirror of Anguish : When disabled (stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, or launch), you mirror the disabling effect back to its source.

Compounding Celerity : Move faster for each active illusion.

Edit : Didn’t read OP for major and adept.

Alissah.9281:

My least favourite ones are the useless ones :P

• Chaotic revival – why does it even exist?
• Retaliating demise – why does it even exist?
• Blinding befuddlement – doesnt do anything
  *Confusing enchantments – meh
• Dazzling glamours – meh

Definitely agree with this, for Minors I’d say Wastrel’s Punishment and Confusing Combatants. Wastrel’s is so forgettable that I often have to remind myself it exists, Confusing Combatants would be so much better if it was 2 stacks of confusions rather than one.

One thing that surprised me though was the hate on Dazzling. Quite frankly, it’s great. With one F3 shatter you can easily stack 15+ Vulnerability on opponents, if it happens to interrupt then that’s around 20+

For Furious Interruption I understand people’s ire, but it’s not so bad. It definitely does not deserve Grandmaster in it’s current state. Its three most useful applications is quick-rezzing, quick-stomping (you can interrupt downed opponents, though technically their skills can’t be interrupted), and quick-mantra charging.