Guild Wars 2

So how exactly is being stuck with off hand with long cooldowns, no new auto attack and still being stuck with illusions provide us with a new moment-to-moment combat style to master?

I guess you will have to wait in see. In the mean time, try not being so bitter and enjoy some new stuff to play with once it gets here!

ronpierce.2760:

I guess you will have to wait in see. In the mean time, try not being so bitter and enjoy some new stuff to play with once it gets here!

You mean reroll as Revenent because that is obviously their new favourite class.

I’d rather just not give them any money until they treat all classes equally.

Well, given that we were only just now given a small amount of detail about Specializations … still don’t know what our specializations will look like, what traits will be, what categories our uncategorized skills will be getting, what will become baseline, etc. … I’d say “wait and see”.

It seems more intelligent than “complain about not getting what you think you need when you don’t know what you’re getting.”

My thoughts anyways.

Sebrent.3625:

Well, given that we were only just now given a small amount of detail about Specializations … still don’t know what our specializations will look like, what traits will be, what categories our uncategorized skills will be getting, what will become baseline, etc. … I’d say “wait and see”.

It seems more intelligent than “complain about not getting what you think you need when you don’t know what you’re getting.”

My thoughts anyways.

But we do know we are getting a sup standard weapon that will lock us into using Sword or Scepter, and we all know very well what Sword and Scepter are like.

And now we have confirmation that we are keeping illusions (don’t know why people expected any differently) and we all know how they preform in different areas.

What exactly is going to vastly change Mesmer gameplay when we have the same weapons and are still having to manage illusions?

Well Levetty … since they are doing such a large revamp to the traits system … we’ll have to wait and see if they are doing similarly large revamps to other things.

I don’t see how that is a big stretch of the imagination.

But continue to move forward without enough information. It’s working well for you.

Also … many of us do quite well with Sword/Scepter.

Sebrent.3625:

Well Levetty … since they are doing such a large revamp to the traits system … we’ll have to wait and see if they are doing similarly large revamps to other things.

I don’t see how that is a big stretch of the imagination.

I don’t know how you can keep accusing me of reacting without knowing enough and then pull this stuff out of your kitten .

Sebrent.3625:

Also … many of us do quite well with Sword/Scepter.

Literally nothing to do with anything mentioned in this thread. Weird place to try and brag, especially about something so mundane, we all know how to use Sword and Scepter.

Levetty.. What exactly where you expecting?

They’ve only teased a bit of info. Nothing much on new content for PvE/PvP ect. No info on our new traits, skills, utilities, elites.

I can understand bitterness about us only getting an offhand, but to take any good or fresh news and turn it into something sour because it’s not exactly what you wanted to hear.. Well that’s a bit silly.

We simply don’t know enough yet.

But we do know we are getting a sup standard weapon that will lock us into using Sword or Scepter, and we all know very well what Sword and Scepter are like.

And now we have confirmation that we are keeping illusions (don’t know why people expected any differently) and we all know how they preform in different areas.

What exactly is going to vastly change Mesmer gameplay when we have the same weapons and are still having to manage illusions?

Why wouldn’t we be keeping illusions? Why exactly is that a bad thing? Sword is meta for PvE, and still pretty good in PvP. Scepter is much better than it used to be, and while awkward still, makes for an effective condi weapon.

Calling our new weapon sub-standard without knowing anything about it is a bit much…

What exactly is going to vastly change? Builds, traits, utilities, elites, a new heal, and the fact that this is one of several specializations to come.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.. What exactly where you expecting?

They’ve only teased a bit of info. Nothing much on new content for PvE/PvP ect. No info on our new traits, skills, utilities, elites.

I can understand bitterness about us only getting an offhand, but to take any good or fresh news and turn it into something sour because it’s not exactly what you wanted to hear.. Well that’s a bit silly.

We simply don’t know enough yet.

Maybe they should stop with the teasing nonsense and finally start answering the concerns we have had for 3 years.

And I am not seeing any good news here, especially not for Mesmer.

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

I think that calling it a ‘New Moment-to-Moment combat style’ is nothing more than the absurd rhetoric that Anet loves to spout. The changes aren’t going to remake the class and game; combat is still going to be very similar to how it is now.

That being said, a lot of the changes we’ve now heard about are potentially substantial boosts to mesmer. Crying doom and gloom at this point is silly.

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Currently toying around with a 4/4/0/0/6 Maim build still trying to customize it to my liking.

At the expense of some power, crit damage and condition duration I get two filler Grandmasters.

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Currently toying around with a 4/4/0/0/6 Maim build still trying to customize it to my liking.

At the expense of some power, crit damage and condition duration I get two filler Grandmasters.

See, now you’re just actively trying to hate on the changes.

If you honestly don’t see the potential this change offers Maimed builds, then we could get some great theorycrafting in and I’d be happy to elaborate.

If you do, and just don’t care because “wahhh offhand shield” then you’re only screwing yourself.

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Currently toying around with a 4/4/0/0/6 Maim build still trying to customize it to my liking.

At the expense of some power, crit damage and condition duration I get two filler Grandmasters.

You are also assuming the GM traits stay the same. Note how they changed parts of ele water traitline. I agree with Fay, don’t condemn it yet. Esp. when mesmer traits are actually pretty solid, we are just limited right now with them all being so spread out in multiple master and GM trait positions —we have at least something to hope for with this change.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Currently toying around with a 4/4/0/0/6 Maim build still trying to customize it to my liking.

At the expense of some power, crit damage and condition duration I get two filler Grandmasters.

See, now you’re just actively trying to hate on the changes.

If you honestly don’t see the potential this change offers Maimed builds, then we could get some great theorycrafting in and I’d be happy to elaborate.

If you do, and just don’t care because “wahhh offhand shield” then you’re only screwing yourself.

As has been pointed out countless times since it was shown off, shield is just the perfect representation that Anet just doesn’t listen to us. If they can’t get that right why should we have any hope they know about any of our other problems?

But go on how will it help maim builds. Off the top of my head I’ve considered swapping dom for Chaos and doing a PU/Maim build but then you lose Shattered concentration which is one of the best parts of shatter.

Also I find it pretty telling how everybody is deflecting away from the main point of the thread, at least fay gave an answer so thanks for that.

No one is saying “you’re not allowed to complain”.

Feel free to complain “they gave us a shield when we’ve been begging for a pistol since beta”. That is a valid complaint. There is ample evidence to support it.

Don’t complain that “this just makes Mesmer worse and we’ll never be fixed”. You don’t have crap to support this complaint except your own bad attitude towards what has happened. Is that attitude validated? Sure. But having some bad/stupid nerfs to the class and bugs go on for long periods of time doesn’t mean that we’ll absolutely be screwed by the changes you have zero information about.

It’s that simple and clear.

Wait for information. Use the information.

You’re skipping the first part. In fact, it could be argued that you’re ignoring information since, as some pointed out and was even stated by ANet, some traits are being improved/merged.

Use facts.

Also, it’s not bragging saying that plenty of us do well with Sword/Scepter … it’s a fact there are plenty of Mesmer builds and videos where plenty of us are doing well in PvE, PvP, and WvW with these weapons.

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Levetty.1279:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

You don’t want to see any good news here. The changes to traits are excellent for Mesmer.

For example?

Edit: Nevermind, I have seen your thread and its just your obsession with a lockdown build that is always going to be niche and outclassed by hammer warriors.

Owch, getting a bit abrasive there dude. What build do you currently run, and tell me how it’s not getting buffed?

Currently toying around with a 4/4/0/0/6 Maim build still trying to customize it to my liking.

At the expense of some power, crit damage and condition duration I get two filler Grandmasters.

See, now you’re just actively trying to hate on the changes.

If you honestly don’t see the potential this change offers Maimed builds, then we could get some great theorycrafting in and I’d be happy to elaborate.

If you do, and just don’t care because “wahhh offhand shield” then you’re only screwing yourself.

As has been pointed out countless times since it was shown off, shield is just the perfect representation that Anet just doesn’t listen to us. If they can’t get that right why should we have any hope they know about any of our other problems?

But go on how will it help maim builds. Off the top of my head I’ve considered swapping dom for Chaos and doing a PU/Maim build but then you lose Shattered concentration which is one of the best parts of shatter.

Also I find it pretty telling how everybody is deflecting away from the main point of the thread, at least fay gave an answer so thanks for that.

This is a cry thread.

You’re not looking for constructive feedback, because that’s been given to you by multiple people. You’re not interested in theorycrafting new builds. What you want is someone to complain with.

I tried to reason with you, and used actual facts to prove that the information that we’ve been given is good news so far. Even despite your silly little ad hominem, I offer possibilities.

The simple fact is this: All we’ve heard of so far are buffs to many established builds, including shatter mantra and yes, lockdown.

But you don’t care about any of that. You’re too salty over the offhand shield. Obviously specializations aren’t going to remake the class: Mesmer is still going to be Mesmer and play like Mesmer. But to ignore all the new possibilities and potential because you didn’t get exactly what you want and to go “omg anet sux” when its been stated that more specializations/new weapons are on the way (in like 2018 lul) is ridiculous.

So what is it you really wanna hear? “ya anet sux mesmer sux they don’t know what to do with us. Expansion gonna suck.”

There. Feel better?

However, on the off chance you really don’t see the new possibilities..

• Dom, Duel, Illusions. — pistol cooldowns adds for a lot more condition pressure.

• Dueling, Illusions, Chaos – I dunno if you’ve explored bountiful/chaotic but even outside of lockdown builds bountiful adds a massive power boost. Chaotic adds more Condi pressure and cover conditions for Torment and the immob makes shatters easier to land.

• Dueling, Inspiration, Illusions – Now that stats aren’t a worry, Inspiration line offers scepter cooldowns, Shattered Conditions, and Glamour pressure. Maimed + Glamours really could be a thing.

These are some new possibilities just based off the blog today, we don’t even know what our new traitline or utilities will offer.

Fay.2357:

I think that calling it a ‘New Moment-to-Moment combat style’ is nothing more than the absurd rhetoric that Anet loves to spout. The changes aren’t going to remake the class and game; combat is still going to be very similar to how it is now.

That being said, a lot of the changes we’ve now heard about are potentially substantial boosts to mesmer. Crying doom and gloom at this point is silly.

Fay has a point here, there is a lot of things to be concerned with in the teaser so far, I for one am desperately afraid of how op the defiant bar GM is liable to end up against us. But there are substantial boosts in an arcane theoretical way that are coming from these changes. I for one look forward to being able to do a Manta/Powerblock/CI interrupt build kitten long as the trait consolidation is not assine it would be reasonably possible to get a reliable interrupt every 10 seconds.

That all said I suspect the area to be concerned is not simply the shield, but just how much warriors and ele’s are likely to be improved by such consolidations.

So why is it ok to be blindly optimistic when we don’t have any information but not ok to point out that the stuff we do know and past behavior by anet shows that this expansion is giving Mesmers the short end of the stick?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

However, on the off chance you really don’t see the new possibilities..

• Dom, Duel, Illusions. — pistol cooldowns adds for a lot more condition pressure.

• Dueling, Illusions, Chaos – I dunno if you’ve explored bountiful/chaotic but even outside of lockdown builds bountiful adds a massive power boost. Chaotic adds more Condi pressure and cover conditions for Torment and the immob makes shatters easier to land.

• Dueling, Inspiration, Illusions – Now that stats aren’t a worry, Inspiration line offers scepter cooldowns, Shattered Conditions, and Glamour pressure. Maimed + Glamours really could be a thing.

These are some new possibilities just based off the blog today, we don’t even know what our new traitline or utilities will offer.

As far as I am aware You have to choose 1 adept, major and GM, correct me if I am wrong because I would like to be. So we can’t take DE and Pistol Cooldown (which actually is a nerf on a the clone death build I was using before maim).

Zarathustra.1458:

That all said I suspect the area to be concerned is not simply the shield, but just how much warriors and ele’s are likely to be improved by such consolidations.

Yeah, this is more my concern. I’m almost completely sure that most mesmer styles will be getting a significant buff from this rework. The issue is gonna be something like how literally every PvP ele is going to have diamond skin. That could just be 12 types of awful, and will delete the viability of condition builds more than any changes to the builds themselves could do.

There is some consistancy to that Fay, just imagine, the time the Mesmers get a buff it is negated not by nerfs but because the buffs to everyone else were bigger….

Zarathustra.1458:

There is some consistancy to that Fay, just imagine, the time the Mesmers get a buff it is negated not by nerfs but because the buffs to everyone else were bigger….

Actually, thinking about it more…if they don’t heavily nerf Diamond skin, it’s going to be unbelievably overpowered.

Close to 100% of ele builds used in any PvP of the game go somewhat into earth. This means that close to 100% of ele builds used in any PvP of this game will take diamond skin. Lets consider the ramifications of this for a moment.

Diamond skin isn’t just immunity to damaging conditions. It’s also immunity to chill, cripple, immobilize, vuln, all those fun utility conditions that help keep things in line. With diamond skin, none of those will work unless you use power burst to drop their hp rapidly. Also remember that eles have enormous healing, which is why diamond skin is so effective on the builds that do take it.

Basically this will mean that any condition build wanting to deal damage to an ele will need to partner with a bursty power build. The one will not function without the other. Aside from being a massive slap in the face to mesmers, it’s also a punch in the gut to condie engies, necros, rangers…anyone that likes using condie builds for PvP. Considering how eles are heavily prevalent, it’s likely that you’ll literally never be able to play a match as a condie build without bashing your face against the brick wall that is diamond skin.

This…ugh.

i’m worried for mesmer, i hate the shield and i hate how our ’’elite’’ specialization is based around a stupid offhand

While i don’t understand why you are upset about being “stuck with illusions” since that is the class mechanic and if you hate that then how can you play mesmer for any period of time…. i can understand the frustration about the stupid offhand.

It’d be great to have a talk with the dev who woke up some day and said: “let’s give mesmers a shield! that totally fits the class, they will love it!”

And i know people will now come and say that they think it fits a duelist and let’s wait until it is here and blabla… No it does not fit a duelist. Some heavily armored duelist maybe, but since when is mesmer heavily armored?

serenke.4806:

While i don’t understand why you are upset about being “stuck with illusions” since that is the class mechanic and if you hate that then how can you play mesmer for any period of time…. i can understand the frustration about the stupid offhand.

It’d be great to have a talk with the dev who woke up some day and said: “let’s give mesmers a shield! that totally fits the class, they will love it!”

And i know people will now come and say that they think it fits a duelist and let’s wait until it is here and blabla… No it does not fit a duelist. Some heavily armored duelist maybe, but since when is mesmer heavily armored?

Mesmer in GW1 didn’t rely on illusions, or at least not manifested ones: i enjoy the idea, but the implementation isn’t good at all: every aoe destroy them so basically in large scale fights or versus hard hitting mobs you can’t use them.

Yes, i had 5 mesmers in GW1. It relied on hexes… GW2 is not GW1, it never was, it does not have hexes.

You can churn out illusions at some insane rate so saying that you cannot use them against hard-hitting mobs is false. Illusions are NOT pets, they are not meant to tank for you, they are also not fire and forget unlike people claim sometimes.

Phantasms are summoned, hit once then they die, that’s the sad life cycle of phantasms.

Wow, the negativity expressed by the OP in this thread is palpable… uncomfortable even! I don’t know what type of reaction you expect from your fellow Mesmers in this thread…

I’ll be positive and just give my opinion on some theory crafting stuff related to MtD since I consider myself pretty experienced with the play-style. Note, the following is just speculation. Keep in mind that gms could be completely changed and/or merged or what. We really don’t know. Anyway, here are some cool ideas for making MtD more interesting and viable:

• Domination: Rending Shatter/Crippling – Shattered Concentration – Power Block would give some nice synergy to the entire idea of MtD being a soft lockdown build. Yes, PB is still utterly useless against thieves, and needs a rework, but it’s not the worst thing ever against others classes.
• Inspiration: Glamour Mastery – Temporal Enchantment/Scepter – Shattered Conditions umm Can you say HELLO to Support MtD! Take yourself Time Warp, Null Field, Portal and Decoy for your utilities, and you’ve got an extremely supportive and mobile Mesmer that can also take dish out some good condi dmg and condi clears as well as turn the tide of team fights with TW.
• Chaos: Debilitating Dissipation – Staff – PU This would be so nasty it just wouldn’t even be fair. lol
• Chaos: DD – Bountiful Interruption – Bountiful Disllusionment = Cele MtD with Harmonious Mantras for the 3rd charge on MoD. Yummy.
• Chaos: DD – Staff/BI – Chaotic Interruption the immob isn’t long enough to completely diminish your torment dmg, but long enough to land a shatter in the first place, which is typically harder on MtD than on power.

And having Furious Interrupt wouldn’t be so bad at all in all these specs. It would definitely make Scepter not so awful every 15s. lol

I’ve always maintained that I’m cautiously optimistic about the changes coming from us with HoT and trending rapidly towards pessimism. With the new announcements made yesterday, that is slowly trending upwards again towards optimism because the changes are literally nothing but good for us.

We are all well aware that shields are mostly bad in GW2 and I had/have no doubts that it’ll continue to be so in HoT. But with the news yesterday, my opinion is being a bit more opened that the off-hand shield might be a solid weapon. I’m still not entirely sold on the shield because I feel like we’d be way better off with a new main-hand but we are literally in a “wait and see” moment.

I’m still tempering my own expectations as ANet tends to go one step forward, two steps backwards so I’m really hoping today’s AMA is insightful for the Mesmer class… in a positive way.

There are still a lot of unknowns and still way too early to start calling doom and gloom on anything because we do not have the full information at our hands to make solid arguments.

I have mixed feelings. I was hopeful after reading: “an entirely new way to play” but yesterday we readed: “New Mechanics: new way to shatter illusions”. This implies that we still have the same base and the illusions must survive enough to be useful. We know what happen in several scenarios… Are they going to make inmune our illusions after press F1-F4?
I doubt it. About the shield.. well, offhand weapons usually have bigger cds than main ones, it’s difficult think how that shield can be as funny as a main or two-handed weapon, but we will see.

However, we have to be positive, new content and a lot of things to test. If we don’t receive what we would like for our mesmers, we can try other specializations and find which fit better with us. I’m seeing the revenant with good eyes even an alternative to be my main if things go wrong.

At least, today we’ll have more information about the specializations on Twich.

Regards and cross your fingers : )

Levetty.1279:

So why is it ok to be blindly optimistic when we don’t have any information but not ok to point out that the stuff we do know and past behavior by anet shows that this expansion is giving Mesmers the short end of the stick?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

However, on the off chance you really don’t see the new possibilities..

• Dom, Duel, Illusions. — pistol cooldowns adds for a lot more condition pressure.

• Dueling, Illusions, Chaos – I dunno if you’ve explored bountiful/chaotic but even outside of lockdown builds bountiful adds a massive power boost. Chaotic adds more Condi pressure and cover conditions for Torment and the immob makes shatters easier to land.

• Dueling, Inspiration, Illusions – Now that stats aren’t a worry, Inspiration line offers scepter cooldowns, Shattered Conditions, and Glamour pressure. Maimed + Glamours really could be a thing.

These are some new possibilities just based off the blog today, we don’t even know what our new traitline or utilities will offer.

As far as I am aware You have to choose 1 adept, major and GM, correct me if I am wrong because I would like to be. So we can’t take DE and Pistol Cooldown (which actually is a nerf on a the clone death build I was using before maim).

… Blindly optimistic? Wat?

All I said was that the news we got recently got about specializations was good news. How is that blind optimism about things we don’t know? Other than that everything else we don’t have enough information on to make a judgment, good or bad.

..Ahh you know what? I’m done. You’re only seeing what you want to see, and you’re only dampening yourself.

(And you may be right about the pistol thing, hope that gets changed.)

2/4/6/0/6 CI + shatter

@Quadox:
That won’t be possible as that is 4 specializations.
With the new specialization system you will only be able to select 3 specializations.

Right now, given that we have no information on what the Mesmer specializations will look like, the closest you can get is pick 3 traitlines and pick 1 Adept, 1 Major, and 1 GM from each … no picking 2-3 Major Adepts and no picking 2 Major Masters.

I will admit that maim builds got a big buff if you give up boon removal (which might be worth it but who knows with resilience).
I think the new Greatsword trait could be pretty good.
Apparently Signet of illusions now gives permanent swiftness? If so about kittening time. How does it work? Is it in addition to the current passive?
Yeah yeah IP is base party time etc.

But
The other classes got much bigger buffs.
They have double downed on interrupt and shatter removing build diversity completely and those are useless in PvE
DE is probably going to be more important the ever now so we will only get a choice of 2 specializations in practice.
Critical infusion nerf
Duelist Discipline would be pretty good if we had a MH pistol.
DE is now a grandmaster trait but thats balanced out by the other 2 GMs being crap
Bountiful disillusionment would be pretty good if they hadn’t changed how stab works
Inspiration line is now schizophrenic between its phantasm based minors and shatter based majors (I do like the more sustain you can put on a shatter build using those majors though but still only on a shatter build)
The other non Greatsword cooldown traits look like having to go through a lot of effort to get the cooldown compared to just having a cooldown reduction like other classes.
Still no new primary.
Still no useful blast finisher.
Still hard countered by the even greater buffed thieves.
Engineers get a better version of one of our elites while being able to use two elites at once.
Empowering Mantras gone so now we have absolutely nothing to help in environments where illusions don’t work (aka pve).
Oh and of course clone death builds have been wiped out for no kittening reason.

Look, I didn’t want to be right. I wanted the Mesmer to be good.