why the change to the pledge?
they nerfed it?
If I remember correctly they changed it back to it’s old form of cd reduction. Same as all of those weapon cd reduction skills pre-HoT. Why I have no idea, but they have been killing mes stealth slowly over time either directly or by adding so much reveal in-game.
It’s a buff in most ways but a nerf to condition removal on one skill.
The extra burning is great, the flat 20% cooldown is really great.
The loss of condition removal on iMage when traited is… not such a big issue but it would have been nice to have it. Prestige has it built in as standard now so doesn’t change anything.
They seem to be quite intent on nerfing Mesmer’s long-duration stealth application. It started off with the nerf to Prismatic Understanding from 100% increased stealth duration to 50%. Then Chrono was released and perma stealth became possible until alacrity was nerfed. After that, they introduced those crappy extra attacks to phantasm casts which reveal you if you were in stealth. Finally, this change to the cooldown reduction behaviour further nerfed Mesmer’s ability to maintain stealth.
Since ArenaNet don’t seem to like communicating their design and balance direction for classes, we can’t say for sure what’s motivating these changes, but if I had to guess, they want to make stealth Thief’s thing and widen the gap between Thief’s stealth application and Mesmer’s. This doesn’t bother me too much. I’m going to miss the stealth shenanigans that Mesmer was able to pull off around HoT’s release, but if they want perma stealth to remain something only a Thief comes close to pulling off, then I can understand that.
It’s a buff in most ways but a nerf to condition removal on one skill.
The extra burning is great, the flat 20% cooldown is really great.
The loss of condition removal on iMage when traited is… not such a big issue but it would have been nice to have it. Prestige has it built in as standard now so doesn’t change anything.
the change/nerf was that the trait used to have a reduced cool down when in stealth, a 1.5sec. reduction I believe, now its a flat 20%. It makes a huge diffence on my Crono. condi. build in WvW. On the surface the change seems small but it makes a big difference for your survivability in fights, even though the average CD difference is only about 5-9secs. But that is a LONG time in a battle.
I mean, without counting alacrity it drops the cooldown from 30s to as low as 12s. Also, stacking different kinds of stealth Hide in Shadows and Stealth and Camouflage would trigger the cooldowns individually, allowing the user to have even lower cooldowns on Torch Skills (although at that point you’re only using Prestige).
It’s a buff in most ways but a nerf to condition removal on one skill.
The extra burning is great, the flat 20% cooldown is really great.
The loss of condition removal on iMage when traited is… not such a big issue but it would have been nice to have it. Prestige has it built in as standard now so doesn’t change anything.
the change/nerf was that the trait used to have a reduced cool down when in stealth, a 1.5sec. reduction I believe, now its a flat 20%. It makes a huge diffence on my Crono. condi. build in WvW. On the surface the change seems small but it makes a big difference for your survivability in fights, even though the average CD difference is only about 5-9secs. But that is a LONG time in a battle.
If PU (I’m assuming – correct me if I’m wrong) and using several stealths, sure the contextual cooldown reduction is better.
But for torch on its own and in any build that does not spend a significant amount of time in stealth (ie maybe only using one stealth utility and maybe mass invis, without PU) the flat cooldown is much better. In any case high alacrity uptime refreshes traited torch very quickly if maximising shatters and using improved alacrity (given it is better than illusionary reversion now).
Personally in terms of survivability/sustain I’d rather see improvements in other areas rather than incentivising spending long times in stealth which is why I welcome the change to the pledge.
It’s a buff in most ways but a nerf to condition removal on one skill.
The extra burning is great, the flat 20% cooldown is really great.
The loss of condition removal on iMage when traited is… not such a big issue but it would have been nice to have it. Prestige has it built in as standard now so doesn’t change anything.
the change/nerf was that the trait used to have a reduced cool down when in stealth, a 1.5sec. reduction I believe, now its a flat 20%. It makes a huge diffence on my Crono. condi. build in WvW. On the surface the change seems small but it makes a big difference for your survivability in fights, even though the average CD difference is only about 5-9secs. But that is a LONG time in a battle.
If PU (I’m assuming – correct me if I’m wrong) and using several stealths, sure the contextual cooldown reduction is better.
But for torch on its own and in any build that does not spend a significant amount of time in stealth (ie maybe only using one stealth utility and maybe mass invis, without PU) the flat cooldown is much better. In any case high alacrity uptime refreshes traited torch very quickly if maximising shatters and using improved alacrity (given it is better than illusionary reversion now).
Personally in terms of survivability/sustain I’d rather see improvements in other areas rather than incentivising spending long times in stealth which is why I welcome the change to the pledge.
Yeah cause long duration stealths isn’t conductive for a good game. There’s a reason so much reveal is being introduced into the game. Everyone has complained for years about perms stealth thief and PU Mesmer because it isn’t fun to fight against. Period. So traps with reveal, Rev reveal, engi and ranger reveal, etc are all coming into full effect due to the constant stream of “stealth has no counter play”. Now for me I agree, the flat recharge rate is better. I don’t run PU anymore, rather if I’m running chaos I have BD slotted. I hit harder and have the ability to stand toe to toe with most specs I encounter because of constant stab and might stacking. Also in WvW I only run two stealths now anyway, decoy and mass invis. I can do this because I’m stacking more Vit and Toughness and making up the difference of precision and power with might stacks and food.
Sachyi Asuna. A [KING]’s Mesmer Unified Kingdom
Torch default cures condis regardless of trait. That doesn’t seem like a nerf to me.