Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen several people mention that several key mesmer skills/traits have been changed significantly or removed since launch and was wondering what mesmer at launch looked like and how it compared to mesmer now.

Would like to know that to. I’ve started to play 1 year after launch and I always wondered whether Mesmer was that what A-net promised us .

I uploaded this in May 2013

Everything was MUCH slower, I guess. There was definitely time to think in a more skillful, calculated way. As opposed to “spam my AoE skills” and “rotate through my defensive skills”.

You also have a lot of old video on this sticky : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides/first

I’d argue one of the biggest changes happened before release. During beta clones did the same amount of damage as the actual mesmer, they changed that without reworking any other part of the illusion mechanic or increasing Mesmer damage to compensate.

Levetty.1279:

I’d argue one of the biggest changes happened before release. During beta clones did the same amount of damage as the actual mesmer, they changed that without reworking any other part of the illusion mechanic or increasing Mesmer damage to compensate.

Wow that would definitely have been awesomely OP. I agree that clones shouldn’t be dealing the same damage that we do, but seriously ANet? My lvl 80 clones are out there dealing 10 damage or less, you could buff their damage a bit and still no one would notice

I mean, the trait system was COMPLETELY different at unique. I could spend all day going over the differences between launch mesmer and current mesmer, but lets see if I can come up with a bit of a highlight reel.

Weapons

We had some massive changes to weapons. Illusionary leap had a ton of changes, though these happened pretty recently. It used to be 2 leap finishers, it used to break stun, and it used to still work after the clone was killed. It also used to be nonfunctional to the point where I liked to call it ‘Illusionary casual stroll’, since the clone rarely actually leaped.

On the focus, temporal curtain detonation used to be instantly usable. This was…honestly pretty broken.

Scepter got a ton of changes. The block on scepter used to hit hard, like sword, but apply no conditions. In fact, torment didn’t even exist back then. When they added torment, they put it on the scepter block and lowered the damage. Confusing images also hit less times and was far slower back then. The scepter autoattack also was just pure damage, no torment (since it didn’t exist).

Torch got some massive changes as well, on the prestige. It used to be that the prestige had to be channeled! If you broke the channel by doing anything (dodge, heal, etc), you’d unstealth immediately. Additionally, PU didn’t work with it at all, because the rationale was that increasing the duration of that skill was a bad thing. Eventually it got changed to the current functionality though, which is a lot better.

Traits

Insofar as traits go, top of the list has to be glamours. We had a trait that caused glamours to apply a stack of confusion to anyone that crossed the boundary of the skill. This was the go-to build in WvW because the boundary condition had no target limit. This was, of course, eventually completely removed.

It’s also worth noting that the whole trait system drastically changed. There used to be 5 traits adept/master levels, and then 3 traits for grandmaster. Additionally, you could pick any trait of a level at or below that level, so you could pick an adept trait in the grandmaster slot. You also had a certain number of points to dedicate to traits instead of just picking 3 lines. You’d be able to pick, in total, 14 different major+minor traits. This meant you could do things like 2 full lines + the adept level of another line, or spread more out with 3 adept level lines and 1 full line.

Illusionary persona used to be a grandmaster level trait in illusions. This is the trait that allowed the mesmer to “shatter themselves” as part of the shatter mechanic. What we take for granted as being baseline now actually had to be picked at the grandmaster trait level.

Bountiful dissilusionment was only buffed to include stability very recently, so for a very long time literally the only mesmer access to stability was from the mantra.

Utilities

Manipulations used to have a base range of 900, increased to 1200 with 1 trait, and reduced in cd with another trait. They made that range boost baseline, keeping the cd reduction trait.

Mimic used to be totally different. It was a very weird skill. You’d channel it for a few seconds. If you were not hit by a projectile in that time, nothing would happen. If you were hit by a projectile in that time, the remainder of the channel became a channeled block, and you gained access to a new skill afterwards: echo. Echo was signified by a pretty looking glowy ball above your wrist, and allowed you to throw out the projectile that you “caught”. This was usually useless, but occasionally very powerful. You could catch things like Kill Shot and unload them in a huge burst, or for the PvE exploit case you could catch the agony arrows of the flame shaman elemental and throw them at another boss to instakill them in the next fractal.

Lastly, of course, retaliation used to be much more powerful, so this was a thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V6ASnuG8uI

Here’s a good example of old mimic (note the opening of the fight). It was not an easy skill to use, very situational, but very cool never the less.

And yes, I was rocking clone death traits well before people thought they were cool (and scepter, and torch. NOBODY used scepter or torch back then. Nobody.)

It was a very foreign time from what you see today XD

Hmm just curious, I know retaliation took 33% damage hit and retaliation on phantasm also took a big hit. But does iDefender still proc retaliation on sharing damage? Can’t play GW2 right now but I wonder if inspiration, chronophantasma and an utility iDefender (which now have protection) can make this build a thing in WvW roaming, where you get wanderer to boost retaliation duration.

Basically a lot like now only with more hopes and dreams for the class to become more trickster as balancing goes on.

I recall playing sc/t + staff glamour confusion in hotjoins simply because as a total noob it was the easiest thing to play – slap down the glamour fields and players weren’t good so would inevitably walk in and out and eventually kill themselves. Chaos armour was also good so allies blasting the fields for it was nice.

Sword/Focus was great in that state of the game with blurred frenzy invuln and 10s base cooldown, and instant into the void on temporal curtain. Probably standard use in many power shatter or phantasm builds. Although I prefer the current ileap compared with the running clone – at least you can now port up terrain to chase enemies. Though loss of stunbreak on swap and no clone alive requirement to activate swap, but that’s understandable.

It’s sad how Focus is totally neglected right now – utterly kitten vs HoT classes and builds and not to mention Shield being entirely superior. Nevermind Warden’s Feedback competing with Restorative Illusions – and how many players in pvp or wvw traiting Inspiration would take Warden’s Feedback over Restorative Illusions – I bet close to zero… it’s so sad. Focus needs some buffs and Warden’s Feedback ought to be moved down to adept tier.

Personally I believe that wardens feedback needs to be made baseline, at the very least the CD reduction needs to be made baseline and it needs to move down to adept tier.

I missed being able to make unarmed clones. They hardly did any damage and didn’t apply any conditions…but it made for a nice novelty.

They gave mesmers scepters as a starter weapon. Every person that stuck with scepter as a weapon basically quit mesmer. All it did was spam clones all day, there was no torment ; confusion had no DPS unless the target used skills.

And the ones that used scepter basically used the “on clone death” trait (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Debilitating_Dissipation) to proc bleed/vulnerability/etc.

OriOri.8724:

Personally I believe that wardens feedback needs to be made baseline, at the very least the CD reduction needs to be made baseline and it needs to move down to adept tier.

I’d take that – reflect being standard would further differentiate it from shield.

Really missing the reflect at the moment but it’s just not an option in pvp or wvw when compared with restorative illusions which is superior in all ways.

But then what could a focus trait provide that is unique if the reflect was baseline? Perhaps in the theme of support in inspiration there could be some beneficial effect pulsed to allies from the curtain and iwarden? Maybe boons or healing or something else?

Honestly if reflects were to be made baseline to focus (though I can’t even imagine how many thiefs and ranger will complain about that being OP) then I guess we could get the following trait for Focus

• Focus skills apply Slow for 2 seconds upon hitting an enemy, Into the Void dazes foes for .75 seconds.

Really mesmer doesn’t have that much access to Slow outside of TW, and even then most of the access is locked away behind chrono line traits that are pretty underwhelming at the moment. Giving mesmers more access to slow would help reinforce the sense of a time manipulator, and of course its actually helpful.

The biggest problem at the moment though it that it shares a trait slot with restorative illusions, which will always win out due to the condi cleanse and heal. Even if reflects aren’t made baseline, Warden’s feedback still needs to be swapped out with either Illusionary Inspiration or Persisting Images.

Also a serious problem with untraited curtain – it often does not block projectiles at all – I’ve had rangers rapid fire straight through the kitten thing.

If traited for reflect this bug is not present but if untraited quite often some projectiles tend to go straight through.

Curunen.8729:

Also a serious problem with untraited curtain – it often does not block projectiles at all – I’ve had rangers rapid fire straight through the kitten thing.

If traited for reflect this bug is not present but if untraited quite often some projectiles tend to go straight through.

That’s because untraited curtain does not interact with projectiles at all…

Fay.2357:

Curunen.8729:

Also a serious problem with untraited curtain – it often does not block projectiles at all – I’ve had rangers rapid fire straight through the kitten thing.

If traited for reflect this bug is not present but if untraited quite often some projectiles tend to go straight through.

That’s because untraited curtain does not interact with projectiles at all…

:o
I swear to the gods it destroyed them? kitten that’s crazy if not, can’t believe I never knew that – learn something new everyday.

Perhaps it’s because in the past every time I used focus in a build I’d stick some points in inspiration to trait it, and since the spec patch I’d forgo RI in favour of traiting WF. But recently is the first time picking it up without traiting…

kitten well then it’s in even more need of a buff to be useful in HoT powercreep.

Not to mention the number of times I curtain pull and see “immune” or whatever is really annoying. :/

Curunen.8729:

Fay.2357:

Curunen.8729:

Also a serious problem with untraited curtain – it often does not block projectiles at all – I’ve had rangers rapid fire straight through the kitten thing.

If traited for reflect this bug is not present but if untraited quite often some projectiles tend to go straight through.

That’s because untraited curtain does not interact with projectiles at all…

:o
I swear to the gods it destroyed them? kitten that’s crazy if not, can’t believe I never knew that – learn something new everyday.

Perhaps it’s because in the past every time I used focus in a build I’d stick some points in inspiration to trait it, and since the spec patch I’d forgo RI in favour of traiting WF. But recently is the first time picking it up without traiting…

kitten well then it’s in even more need of a buff to be useful in HoT powercreep.

Not to mention the number of times I curtain pull and see “immune” or whatever is really annoying. :/

iWarden destroys em untraited. Which used to be cool back in a time when you could get some use out of an iWarden sitting on the field.

People invariably complained that GW2 Mes wasn’t GW1 Mes.

Anything else was secondary.

Also some things like shattered strength was a minor trait and it gave 2 stacks of might per shatter.
Your phantasms could not be obstructed and thus could be summoned on walls in wvw for example.

NYRKKIPAULA.8051:

Also some things like shattered strength was a minor trait and it gave 2 stacks of might per shatter.
Your phantasms could not be obstructed and thus could be summoned on walls in wvw for example.

That would be extremely useful in WvW. Its always annoying when I’m in a small group trying to take a tower and someone is up on the walls and all of my attacks are just obstructed and I have to sit and wait for us to get through the wall/gate to actually attack back.

OriOri.8724:

NYRKKIPAULA.8051:

Also some things like shattered strength was a minor trait and it gave 2 stacks of might per shatter.
Your phantasms could not be obstructed and thus could be summoned on walls in wvw for example.

That would be extremely useful in WvW. Its always annoying when I’m in a small group trying to take a tower and someone is up on the walls and all of my attacks are just obstructed and I have to sit and wait for us to get through the wall/gate to actually attack back.

I’m not ashamed to say that by “useful” you actually mean “totally broken”. iZerkers summon on target. This means that literally any siege within 1200 range of an outside wall would be destroyed in short order by gs mesmers spamming phantasms on them. There are a very limited number of spots inside most towers that are not within 1200 range of an outside wall. It really sucked.

Fay.2357:

OriOri.8724:

NYRKKIPAULA.8051:

Also some things like shattered strength was a minor trait and it gave 2 stacks of might per shatter.
Your phantasms could not be obstructed and thus could be summoned on walls in wvw for example.

That would be extremely useful in WvW. Its always annoying when I’m in a small group trying to take a tower and someone is up on the walls and all of my attacks are just obstructed and I have to sit and wait for us to get through the wall/gate to actually attack back.

I’m not ashamed to say that by “useful” you actually mean “totally broken”. iZerkers summon on target. This means that literally any siege within 1200 range of an outside wall would be destroyed in short order by gs mesmers spamming phantasms on them. There are a very limited number of spots inside most towers that are not within 1200 range of an outside wall. It really sucked.

Don’t let us tab target to siege that we can’t see then? I don’t understand why its ok for me to have to sit on the sidelines and watch other people get to hit the people on the walls with their weapon skills.

OriOri.8724:

Fay.2357:

OriOri.8724:

NYRKKIPAULA.8051:

Also some things like shattered strength was a minor trait and it gave 2 stacks of might per shatter.
Your phantasms could not be obstructed and thus could be summoned on walls in wvw for example.

That would be extremely useful in WvW. Its always annoying when I’m in a small group trying to take a tower and someone is up on the walls and all of my attacks are just obstructed and I have to sit and wait for us to get through the wall/gate to actually attack back.

I’m not ashamed to say that by “useful” you actually mean “totally broken”. iZerkers summon on target. This means that literally any siege within 1200 range of an outside wall would be destroyed in short order by gs mesmers spamming phantasms on them. There are a very limited number of spots inside most towers that are not within 1200 range of an outside wall. It really sucked.

Don’t let us tab target to siege that we can’t see then? I don’t understand why its ok for me to have to sit on the sidelines and watch other people get to hit the people on the walls with their weapon skills.

It was certainly a well needed change in the past as it was quite abusive (like Dragon’s tooth was for way longer and Life Transfer still is). However, I do agree that Mesmer is pretty pathetic at damaging enemies on walls. I remember the time I killed a Mesmer on my longbow Ranger because I was able to hit him/her from behind the safety of the lip of a wall whilst the Mesmer couldn’t pressure me at all outside of a Mind Stab.

Mesmer’s role in pressuring players on top of walls is pretty much the same as before HoT: Temporal Curtain things off the wall or into Necro Marks. However, Gravity Well provides a unique opportunity for some pretty potent CC. I often pull with Temporal Curtain into my own Gravity Well and have people spike the well. Works very well.

Mesmer was my first 80 back in 2012. It was fun to play, a lot thought it is the ‘hardest’ class to level, but I though it’s easy. It was definitely a luxury to have Timewarp, also it increased attack speed by 100% not just 50%, but they nefed it quickly. TW was on a 210 seconds CD and you didn’t have any other significant quickness sources.

I mostly played a duelist build with ethereal fields for confusion and bleed. Ah good old times :-)

I honestly preferred the old Time Warp. With all other Quickness sources being personal and having downsides attached to them, the old 100% TW was very strong, and felt like an actual Ultimate skill of sorts.

I remember when feedback could one shot bosses in dungeons, or even funnier the jungle wurm in Caledon.

@Carighan when you say old TW you mean when it doubled your attack speed? Yea that sounds pretty appropriate for a PvE elite skill honestly, obviously overpowered in PvP. But that would be a perfect skill to actually separate balance between PvE and PvP.

Yes, old 210s CD +100% attackspeed TW. Plus back then TW was the only source of Quickness which had no downside attached.

Warriors, Rangers and Thieves (I think) could self-quickness, but each of them had a debuff they gave themselves, and it wasn’t a condition, it was a special debuff like “Lose all endurance and you cannot regenerate any for 6 seconds”. Engineers could gain a random of these effects plus its debuff via Elixir U.

Though to be fair, back then Quickness wasn’t a boon, IIRC. So no increasing duration.

In conclusion: The game was a lot more intentional in it’s design. It wasn’t perfect, and there were many areas that needed improving (particular weapons/traits/utilities/playstyles etc). But it wasnt the sort of spamfest kittenshow you have now

Ross Biddle.2367:

But it wasnt the sort of spamfest kittenshow you have now

Come to think of it, that development (across the board, skills, boons, conditions, everything) is probably the biggest blunder as far as post-release development goes.

Especially because it’s virtually impossible to truly reverse by now.

Sort of funny to watch the above footage from 2013 thinking that while everything was much slower, it was actually mostly better because there was time to plan/react rather than just quickly press buttons hoping for good procs.

Simonoly.4352:

Mesmer’s role in pressuring players on top of walls is pretty much the same as before HoT: Temporal Curtain things off the wall or into Necro Marks. However, Gravity Well provides a unique opportunity for some pretty potent CC. I often pull with Temporal Curtain into my own Gravity Well and have people spike the well. Works very well.

Thanks for reminding me about all those focus pull kills back when farming EB Sanctum was necessary to get a Legendary.