Guild Wars 2

ok so the pvp patch is in sight and I’m quite curious about it.
in the thief section they started a buff/nerf thread and perhaps we should do so too, in a constructive way with focus on tpvp (please no wvw talk here!).

I’ll give my thoughts for starters:

scepter: it is designed to be a condition weapon right? but the only attack that applies a condition is 3 and that skill is not very strong due to the really long animation. my suggestion, reduce the animation time by 33% or ad 1-3 stacks of confusion. furthermore the third hit of the autoattack should additionally apply one stack of confusion for about 3-4 seconds. the clones third attack will apply a 2-3 second confusion.
this would make the scepter very nice in a condition spec but not over the top imo.

staff:
phase retreat +1-2 sec recharge. if traited right it is a way too good gtfo skill with way too short cooldown.

greatsword:
mind stab is quite lackluster imo, no great damage no big aoe, rooted, lackluster…
a more specialised mind stab would be good imo.
less damage, a little bigger aoe and 2-3 boons removed would make it a good (balanced) skill. perhaps longer recharge (15-25sec?)to compensate. this way it would be a skill with great benefits in some situations

focus:
swiftness should stack with other sources! hope it is a bug and not intended

torch: image is really the worst phantasm of mesmer by a large margin. way too long cooldown for this useless piece of illusion. either cooldown cut in half or attackspeed doubled with 2 stacks of confusion.
furthermore the prestige makes you invis (channeled) but you can hold a point or take one while in stealth. it this intended? imo it should be seen as any other stealth meaning: me in stealth + enemy on point = enemy takes point.

so what are your thoughts?

Probably shorten the duration of Moa Morph, this would at least shut the vocal minority up. Otherwise, we’ve been nerfed quite alot the past several patches (the Phantasm Build), not really sure anything else needs nerfing.

hm moa is a high risk/high reward skill. it is easy to dodge. but perhaps a nerf is needed. my suggestion however would be to increase the victim’s hp to help to survive while still being out of combat for 10 secs.

The lvl 25 trait for the very first trait to the top which does 5%+dmg when enemy is doing nothing is practically useless until you stun the enemy. Either make it +10-20% dmg or make the condition easier to fulfill.

I’m not 100% clear on what they intended out of scepter, but I feel like the fact that its clones (and its auto-attack, for that matter) has no condition attached to it feels odd compared to sword’s vulnerability or staff’s winds of chaos, particularly considering I’m not quite seeing the trade-off. I’d like to see it apply confusion (maybe on the first or second attack, maybe clone third) but that may be asking for a lot if confusion’s damage is hard to keep in check. It’s hard to tell.

For greatsword, Illusionary Berserker is a complete oddity because of it not needing LoS. I definitely can’t imagine them changing other phantasms to match it, as that would make mesmers absolutely terrifying in siege… so I can only imagine they’ll take it away eventually. I think its crippling and damage still make it very worthwhile, but like everyone else, I wouldn’t mind seeing Mind Stab buffed to compensate… maybe a noticeable dps bump over autoattacking would do it too.

One small note for focus: Temporal Curtain‘s failure to stack with itself is intentional for sure, but I’m kinda wondering if it’s complicated on the programming side to have that limitation in place but also still allow it to stack with other swiftness buffs. I wouldn’t be surprised if they intended to make that decision, even if it’s not ideal. Like it kinda feels like there’s a switch that simply says, “does not stack with other buffs of its type” or “always overwrites” (which it doesn’t), but that you can’t have a switch that says “overwrites itself but stacks with others”. But then how come there are plenty of debuffs that seem to do that just fine? (Sneak Attack comes to mind)

Nerf portal, MOA and Time Warp

Buff Scepter, mind stab and torch

Everything else is fine, some of our utilities skills could be better

Greatsword needs an ethereal field, or at least some field.

I’d like to see a buff to Scepters auto attack so that it could be a little more then a mosquitoe bite while spawning nearly useless clones. I alt a Scepter just cause, and this is one thing I really think it could use. It works well as a dps weapon, except the Damage is pretty poor. It doesn’t have to be over the top damage, but if the clones it spawns are to be pretty much useless shatter fodder, which is the case atm, at least the little purple lobs could hurt a little more.

Zid.4196:

Greatsword needs an ethereal field, or at least some field.

Oh yeah, that too. The GS AoE thing. Right now it’s a total Throw-Away attack as far as I can see. It’s a total waste of a skill space. Make the range larger, make it strip more then one boon, make it better in any direction, but right now, its a trash skill on a stellar mesmer weapon.

aaron.7850:

Nerf portal, MOA and Time Warp

You know, it’s funny but no dungeon groups have hit me up for Portal yet. Or time warp even. I actually almost have to beg like " No wait dont get spiked, let me portal you , i totally can!"

They also don’t know when I drop Time Warp too often. I run with my guild, but we are often running with ppl we haven’t run with before, so it’s like a PUG, but without the hate.

My point being, that these skills may seem OP when you just got spanked by them, but they are still underused in many other situations, and any nerf to them would make things seem…..pretty hateful.

Like the to ppl that just want to clear dungeons well, and don’t care about PvP. I know, it’s weird, but we are out here, and it’s our game too.

crewthief.8649:

Probably shorten the duration of Moa Morph, this would at least shut the vocal minority up. Otherwise, we’ve been nerfed quite alot the past several patches (the Phantasm Build), not really sure anything else needs nerfing.

If they lower the duration, I would like the coold down lowered also then.

Otherwise, another useless ability.

Taemek.1602:

crewthief.8649:

Probably shorten the duration of Moa Morph, this would at least shut the vocal minority up. Otherwise, we’ve been nerfed quite alot the past several patches (the Phantasm Build), not really sure anything else needs nerfing.

If they lower the duration, I would like the coold down lowered also then.

Otherwise, another useless ability.

I’ve stopped using Moa Morph in PvE. While it does help to render a Champion pretty useless for 10s, their HP doesn’t change, and in the end, no one is able to damage him better then before. Time Warp is better if your team is coordinated, or even lucky, in the case of random DE.

I find myself using Balthazars Hounds, as a Human solo lvling, then anything else, cus they just kitten for you.

There have already been numerous attacks and counter attacks for Moa Morph, with vids and stuff, but it is all PvP based. Moa doesn’t help so much in PvE, and its been proven to be survivable in PvP, so just let it go.

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Taemek.1602:

crewthief.8649:

Probably shorten the duration of Moa Morph, this would at least shut the vocal minority up. Otherwise, we’ve been nerfed quite alot the past several patches (the Phantasm Build), not really sure anything else needs nerfing.

If they lower the duration, I would like the coold down lowered also then.

Otherwise, another useless ability.

I’ve stopped using Moa Morph in PvE. While it does help to render a Champion pretty useless for 10s, their HP doesn’t change, and in the end, no one is able to damage him better then before. Time Warp is better if your team is coordinated, or even lucky, in the case of random DE.

I find myself using Balthazars Hounds, as a Human solo lvling, then anything else, cus they just kitten for you.

There have already been numerous attacks and counter attacks for Moa Morph, with vids and stuff, but it is all PvP based. Moa doesn’t help so much in PvE, and its been proven to be survivable in PvP, so just let it go.

I agree which is why I use TW and Reaper in PvP or TW if taking forts etc.

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Taemek.1602:

crewthief.8649:

Probably shorten the duration of Moa Morph, this would at least shut the vocal minority up. Otherwise, we’ve been nerfed quite alot the past several patches (the Phantasm Build), not really sure anything else needs nerfing.

If they lower the duration, I would like the coold down lowered also then.

Otherwise, another useless ability.

I’ve stopped using Moa Morph in PvE. While it does help to render a Champion pretty useless for 10s, their HP doesn’t change, and in the end, no one is able to damage him better then before. Time Warp is better if your team is coordinated, or even lucky, in the case of random DE.

I find myself using Balthazars Hounds, as a Human solo lvling, then anything else, cus they just kitten for you.

There have already been numerous attacks and counter attacks for Moa Morph, with vids and stuff, but it is all PvP based. Moa doesn’t help so much in PvE, and its been proven to be survivable in PvP, so just let it go.

It doesn’t even morph champions for 10s but like 3sec… Skill is 100% useless in pve especially when you have Time Warp.

could we please stay on tpvp? =)

oh and I totally forgot to mention interrupt traits. they are soooo semi subpar I don’t even know where to begin. is there anyone out there using those traits in tpvp?
scrap them and give us new ones!
pretty please with sugar on top!

When it comes to the moa morph argument I say this: increase the cast duration by an extra second and give it a glow effect like pve boss power attacks so players know when it can be interrupted.