Guild Wars 2

“Mesmer
Cleansing Conflagration: This trait should now remove a condition at the beginning of The Prestige instead of at the end of the skill.
Duelist’s Discipline: This trait no longer reduces damage dealt by the Illusionary Duelist.
Illusion of Life: This skill should no longer allow players to rally off of creatures that grant no experience.
Portal Exeunt: Updated the skill fact of this skill to reflect the actual duration. Also added a description to the Portal Uses marker.”

It seems strange but i dont see any nerf

What are these skills and who uses them?

Nothing really nerfed so no big deal

. . . . AND no one else got a portal skill this update

Tell me about it: we didn’t get kittened, or get buffed then kittened a week later.
Also, looks like some other classes attacks/sigils are getting borked by stuff like invuln.
This kinda scales with our phants being blocked by same/similar effects.

They’re saving it for February when we’re all full of Singles Awareness Day chocolates.

Kerona … don’t jinx us. We get shafted enough.

People use illusion of life? Far more useful utilities to equip in general. Sad they didn’t buff Mantra of Pain but hey at least they didn’t nerf us I’m shocked! Fixes are better than nothing even if they are tiny yet I feel there is still a lot needing fixing and balancing for the Mesmer profession the lack of updates is a bit disappointing but I hope there will be more solid ones in the upcoming pvp patch, still this is a lot better than nerfs so I can’t complain.

Still no fix for temporal veil swiftness not stacking sadly =(.

No nerfs, but maybe more bugs :p

kerona.3465:

They’re saving it for February when we’re all full of Singles Awareness Day chocolates.

Lmfao.

OMG no nerf. I welcome the Prestige change.

I’m just hoping they touch up the more ‘defective’ traits on classes, in the next month or two. I’m looking at you, Inspiration!

i’m using Illusion on Life…. for trolling my party members XD…. is WTF happened

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essay/rant involving poor grammar restrained letting out a depressed sigh

Well alteast we didn’t get nerfed right?… I’m sure a-net knows what they are doing and our time will come ^^

… I need a nice hot pot of tea

Overall looks like more of a general content/bug fix extravaganza across the game in general with not much focus on specific profession changes.. which is fine by me.

They’re luring us into a false sense of security… just you wait!

I wanted the last nerf to shattered Strength to be reverted in PvE and some run speed increases.

But I expected Mind Wrack/iBerserker/Time warp nerf.

So overall I guess I am happy. It at least puts the nerfs off for another month.

Advent.6193:

Kerona … don’t jinx us. We get shafted enough.

It’s cooooooooming~

Not much good news, but no bad news either. And Duelist’s Discipline got fixed so yay. I’ll admit that when I saw “Illusion of Life” I got my hopes up that it had been given some additional tweaking. At the very least I wish that when the player gets downed at the end of it it didn’t count against their downed limit, I’ve accidentally killed players with it before.

The big question is what changes weren’t notated?

I’ll take the good news as good news and the fact that there was a lack of bad news as good news as well. This is a very lucky day for us, we should make sure to treasure it, because it might not ever happen again. /CHEER

Dastion asked the right question, if we don’t have a stealth nerf this patch I’ll be dancing in the streets. Literally, and it’s fairly cold outside.

Supposedly the trident was nerfed.

Trident now applies bleeds, and so do trident clones (no longer apply confusion). Illusionary whaler now applies 4 confusion not bleeds.

I am not really upset about the change but I am getting sick of this hunt to see what they didn’t tell us about.

I have this weird feeling that’s similar to battered wife syndrome. I’m actually more nervous now because they didn’t nerf anything.

I’m not convinced that the change to trident was a nerf, but it IS different. It’s a little more viable for variety of builds underwater now actually, and less reliant on clone spam for damage. That said, it’s always a search to see what they didn’t tell us in the patch notes. . . a search that I’m still not completely done looking through though I can’t remember every last detail of every skill and trait.

The trident change is definitely a nerf. It was very powerful so maybe it was deserved.

Bleed as a condition on the trident is a sorry exchange. If you are in a group, bleeds are normally at 25 stacks anyway.

Overall it isn’t horrible, but it’s definitely a nerf if you PvP or WvW.

So far, people only noticed Siren’s Call, however:

Did anyone else notice the change to Illusionary Whaler? Instead of bleeding, it deals confusion. So our trident phantasm and clone swap their condition dealing. At least we can inflict bleeding instead of just boons.

I’m sure we’ll find a ninja nerf somewhere. Us mesmers ALWAYS gets nerfed right? Why break tradition now? T_T

OT:
I’m sad that the legendary that needed the most upgrade The Minstrel didn’t get any. It’s my birthday today too I thought I was gonna get this one.

I’m afraid to think of all the covert nerfs that might have befallen us that ANet unbelievably tries to hide from us.

If that’s true about the trident, I personally preferred the confusion!

I’m angry. Not about the nerf for trident since it’s a fix but because they shadow changed it.
Why don’t they write it in their patch notes??? Any change is anyway noticed by the players.

Confusion based phant with bleeds from illusions? Buff for my CD confusion build

all crap changes everyone will forget 5 hours after their change. who uses these skills… illusion of life has it use in fotm but who seriously care about rally off of a rat

It’s unlikely they are hiding changes on purpose. It seems they just keep poor notes and don’t coordinate well with the folks that write the patch notes. It’s possible some changes were approved last minute and the notes were written earlier or just not reported due to time.

Still, it is rather annoying.

Patch seems fine for Mez. I’d like to see some changes to encourage build variety – I do feel like shatter builds are too good compared to condition/phantasm. Mantras might need a rework too. Trident changes are sensible, and it’s nice to see bug fixes – hope to see them systematically fixing all broken skills/traits over the next few months.

Oh, good to see venoms get the “phantasm philosophy” of block/blind/invuln applied to them. Consistency in skill mechanics is good.

(To be clear, I don’t think shatter should be nerfed, at least not by much. I’d just like to see Mez builds be balanced against each other better.)

Gadgets placed by players (such as turrets) will now apply boons and conditions based on those players’ stats. Those conditions and boons will not be reduced to level-1 values when the triggering gadget is destroyed.

Not sure if this applies to Phantasms, but can anybody check if stuff like Phantasmal Mage and Confusing Combatants now benefit from Condition Duration bonus and Master of Misdirection?

I won’t get my hopes up to high, because anet stated that they think phatasms are attacks…

No Scepter buff? Scepter auto-attack tooltip error still there?

To be honest, I’m a little disappointed.

Even our current underwater skills will get nerfed again next time.
You can easily stack 15-25 bleeds on a target with just autoattack and 3 clones decent precision and sharper images, this is very deadly if you play a condition build.
Definitely an improvement for pve anyway cause you don’t have to rely on confusion.
Havent tested it out in wvw yet, underwater battles are not that common

In PvP the confusion on the trident auto-attack was amazing (probably why it was changed). Bleed doesn’t compare to the damage that was dumped out by the confusion stacks created by the auto attack + clone attack.

For those hoping that scepter #1 will get confustion — the trident change is a clue that the scepter will not change that way.

Clones generating confusion is not going to be in the mix.

I just looked and they updated the patch notes to include unannounced changes to the elementalist and ranger, but still did not comment on the changes to mesmer. So they either want to keep it hidden, or they forgot and haven’t read the mesmer forums, neither of which I like.

Clones generating confusion could very well be in the mix. . . of a great Grandmaster Trait in Dueling to replace Mantra buff when they move that into a lower tier!

. . .

. . .

. . .

Well it sounded good to me!

Edit: Actually putting such a trait in the Inspiration line based off of Phantasms actually sounds nice, Phantasms have 50% chance to apply Confusion on hits. (duration >= 5 seconds if affected by condition duration, 7 seconds if not)

Delofakitten.4231:

Edit: Actually putting such a trait in the Inspiration line based off of Phantasms actually sounds nice, Phantasms have 50% chance to apply Confusion on hits. (duration >= 5 seconds if affected by condition duration, 7 seconds if not)

As much as that’d give Inspiration a much-needed buff … with how all over the place our Confusion traits are, our luck … it’d be in Domination or something. Otherwise: Yes, please!

Delofakitten.4231:

Clones generating confusion could very well be in the mix. . . of a great Grandmaster Trait in Dueling to replace Mantra buff when they move that into a lower tier!

Well it sounded good to me!

Edit: Actually putting such a trait in the Inspiration line based off of Phantasms actually sounds nice, Phantasms have 50% chance to apply Confusion on hits. (duration >= 5 seconds if affected by condition duration, 7 seconds if not)

Probably OP given how powerful the trident clones were with confusion. I doubt we’ll ever see this mechanic again (confusion on clone autoattack). However putting a percentage on the trait may make it possible — although 50% in your example is a little high. I guess they could jack around the duration as well to make it anywhere from worthless to OP.

Zyk.3597:

Patch seems fine for Mez. I’d like to see some changes to encourage build variety – I do feel like shatter builds are too good compared to condition/phantasm. Mantras might need a rework too. Trident changes are sensible, and it’s nice to see bug fixes – hope to see them systematically fixing all broken skills/traits over the next few months.

Oh, good to see venoms get the “phantasm philosophy” of block/blind/invuln applied to them. Consistency in skill mechanics is good.

(To be clear, I don’t think shatter should be nerfed, at least not by much. I’d just like to see Mez builds be balanced against each other better.)

Minor error. Thief venoms actually got buffed because they used to lose a charge if you attacked in combat even if you were swinging your weapon at nothing. now they only lose charges if someone avoids the attack. They always lost a charge on block, dodge etc. It’s a quality of life change.

I honestly think mesmers are in a good spot now. The change to shattered strength was a bug fix and not a nerf. As a phantasm mesmer there was no way my build could match shatter mesmers before so I’m glad they did not buff it this patch. I’m glad the iduellest trait has been fixed and there have been no huge changes to any profession this patch. on the whole I like this change. I would like more weapon options for all professions though.

Quartz.3462:

Zyk.3597:

Patch seems fine for Mez. I’d like to see some changes to encourage build variety – I do feel like shatter builds are too good compared to condition/phantasm. Mantras might need a rework too. Trident changes are sensible, and it’s nice to see bug fixes – hope to see them systematically fixing all broken skills/traits over the next few months.

Oh, good to see venoms get the “phantasm philosophy” of block/blind/invuln applied to them. Consistency in skill mechanics is good.

(To be clear, I don’t think shatter should be nerfed, at least not by much. I’d just like to see Mez builds be balanced against each other better.)

Minor error. Thief venoms actually got buffed because they used to lose a charge if you attacked in combat even if you were swinging your weapon at nothing. now they only lose charges if someone avoids the attack. They always lost a charge on block, dodge etc. It’s a quality of life change.

I honestly think mesmers are in a good spot now. The change to shattered strength was a bug fix and not a nerf. As a phantasm mesmer there was no way my build could match shatter mesmers before so I’m glad they did not buff it this patch. I’m glad the iduellest trait has been fixed and there have been no huge changes to any profession this patch. on the whole I like this change. I would like more weapon options for all professions though.

Whoops. My Thief is still a baby and I’m saving up for spin2win, so I haven’t really played with venoms much. My main mesmer wishlist would probably be:
– Make mantras worth dabbling in. Building around them is the only way to make them viable, and that’s just not worth doing generally.
– Buff condition damage relative to shatters. I’m not sure it needs to be a major buff, but Mesmers (on land) are just not capable of matching the condition builds of other classes. To be clear, I love the reliance on staff clones and sharper images – that’s what makes a mez build unique – so I don’t want to see a Mez sans phantasms/clones become a condition powerhouse. Condition isn’t the worst in wvw (I play it, personally), but it needs some love in PvE. I’m honestly quite sad that Necros stole our Epidemic/Fevered Dreams-alike from GW1. Taking out the vulnerability on WoC might be a big step towards buffing condition builds, but would that make it too powerful? And how can we approach aoe conditions?
– Leave shatters mostly alone. I think they’re in a good place, post-Shattered Strength nerfbuff (buffnerf?). Very solid and fun set of builds. For Flame Ram’s sake, please don’t buff it again, that was silly and just made every other build nearly pointless in comparison.
– Please give scepter a niche. Deceptive Evasion means that a clone generation weapon is pointless, and scepter clones have literally no usefulness. They proc sharper images the least of all weapons (sword attacks decently fast, GS has three hits/attack, staff is just awesome) and have no “extra” effect (vuln, WoC). Confuse ray is awkward to use and would not even be OP if it just hit all at once – might have some nice usage as a well-timed skill shot if it was near-instant. The #2 block-clone isn’t all that bad, but doesn’t really meld with the rest of the weapon.

[edit] Forgot a really big one for me – please make our clones have the same condition duration as ourselves! It’s annoying when you’re using pizzas or have master of misdirection to see the torch clone’s confusion fizzle out ineffectually.

Krispera.5087:

OMG no nerf. I welcome the Prestige change.

Trying to encourage Mesmers to use torch is enough of a nerf for this patch along with the stealth changes to trident. Anet didn’t feel they needed to publicly state a new nerf after those.

Sarcasmic.6741:

Krispera.5087:

OMG no nerf. I welcome the Prestige change.

Trying to encourage Mesmers to use torch is enough of a nerf for this patch along with the stealth changes to trident. Anet didn’t feel they needed to publicly state a new nerf after those.

That’s a bit silly. Torch is a lovely weapon, just one that requires careful usage. I mostly use it in WvW for the combo finisher + stealth, so perhaps it flourishes more there. As for the trident, it’s still ridiculously good – I’ve run the Jellybelly fractal a few times since the change and it performs very well. Am I the only person for whom the old trident felt extremely buggy, albeit powerful?

Oh, the torch phantasm could cast a bit quicker. That would be nice – it’s a bit flowbreaking as is.

Zyk.3597:

That’s a bit silly. Torch is a lovely weapon, just one that requires careful usage.

Sorry, but… No. Torch is a crappy excuse for a weapon still. If you are that desperate for stealth, slot it in your utilities, but don’t sacrifice your entire off hand for it.