Guild Wars 2

drcraig.9403:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

drcraig.9403:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Condi Cleanse=Condi Damage Mitigation.
Toughness=Direct Damage Mitigation.
Healing=General Damage Mitigation

Yes, unfortunately you can run out of cleanse. That = no mitigation. Condi builds don’t run out of condis.

Yes, a condi build that ran out of condis would be a pretty sorry build.

However, toughness doesn’t stop all direct damage. I’m not clear what kind of damage mitigation you’re looking for, here. Do you want condition clears that can stop all condition damage?

No, just stating that I think condi builds are for lazy, unskilled players.

Then we’ll have to close by disagreeing, since your statement seems to be an entirely useless value judgement.

To be frank, you sound less like someone interested in balance, and more like someone who just doesn’t like dying to condi builds, and can’t be bothered to learn proper counterplay.

drcraig.9403:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Condi Cleanse=Condi Damage Mitigation.
Toughness=Direct Damage Mitigation.
Healing=General Damage Mitigation

Yes, unfortunately you can run out of cleanse. That = no mitigation. Condi builds don’t run out of condis.

Yes, a condi build that ran out of condis would be a pretty sorry build.

However, toughness doesn’t stop all direct damage. I’m not clear what kind of damage mitigation you’re looking for, here. Do you want condition clears that can stop all condition damage?

drcraig.9403:

Hmm… what about the fact that condi bypasses toughness? So much for damage mitigation I guess. Seems to me with condi powercreep, condi builds have consistently gotten less skillfull. Agree to disagree I suppose.

Condi Cleanse=Condi Damage Mitigation.
Toughness=Direct Damage Mitigation.
Healing=General Damage Mitigation

But Xstein did name Jennah as a mesmer…

A. Countess Anise: The Master Exemplar of the shining blade, the queen’s royal guard, and her advisor. She is known to be quite beautiful. She is also known to be able to predict the actions of others. Based on a message from Canach during the Rayal Summit, it is theorized that she may also use her mesmer powers to hide her true age and form. I also remember reading in another forum post about a theory that she may have used chronomancer skills during the living story.

See?

Shhhh, don’t question the logic, Levetty. Azukas was busy playing mesmer, for real, in the game, because they’re a mesmer main, and mesmer mains have an instinctive knowledge of 9 year old clusterkitten threads.

Azukas.1426:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PU-condi-mez/first#post5384202

Ok been away for awhile just kinda doing stuff IRL. Now while I was gone I found this thread where people were actually defending PU condi mesmers in WvW.

Wait WHAT no sane person who really cares about balance is going to defend PU condi mesmer!! Well I then notice those same names defending PU condi are the EXACT same ppl defending Condi Shatter here.

Thanks and let’s continue the cheering for how great we mesmers have it!!!

1) You’re comparing WvW 9 months ago to sPvP now. Unless you’re really going to make an argument that PU Condi was ever anything other than a cheesy noob-stomper in sPvP. At best.

2) PU Condi was good at two things: Winning 1v1s (if the opponent was foolish enough to not just leave), and escaping outnumbered fights. It ruled WvW roaming, except for being slower than sin, but it didn’t actually change the balance of WvW that much, since solo roaming… I mean, come on.

3) If you were losing matches to PU Condi in sPvP, that’s just an indication that you’re a bad sPvPer. It was an excellent duelist that couldn’t effectively hold a point, couldn’t meaningfully contribute to teamfights. It could stomp people who didn’t know how to dodge or cleanse, that’s about it. If that was you, that… explains a lot of your current angst.

4) Maybe it’s the same people, because they’re the people who know something about this profession. Just a thought.

5) “how great we mesmers have it” — You really spend a lot of time emphasizing how you’re totally, really, a real-life mesmer main. I mean, I have no reason to disbelieve you but… If someone can’t go an hour without spontaneously declaring “I’m human,” I start wondering if maybe they’re a semi-sentient colony of spiders wearing a fleshsuit, you know?

Ross Biddle.2367:

A bad bias would be those same experienced mesmers being liars, cheats, or people prone to misdirection or ill gotten gain.

Mesmers, prone to misdirection? Perish the thought! ;P

Great, good feedback.

StickerHappy.8052:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

StickerHappy.8052:

Hate to burst the bubble but Azukas is mostly on point with his stuff.

I kind of feel like I need to deny this just on principle. For a more nuanced take on what Azukas is really, really not on point, the replies in this thread (and others) do a better job than I could in this post.

StickerHappy.8052:

Mesmers are the best 1v1 class in the game atm. This is coming from me who dueled countless mesmers, mesmer is my hardest matchup even on my ranger. Mesmers are not mainly gotten for Moa and port, its part of it but 1v1 ability is more of the deal breaker here.

Bull. But I do think you’ve hit on an important, maybe the important, point here. Mesmers are good at 1v1. They always have been; they were designed to be. We have an entire traitline called “Dueling,” for chrissake. People don’t like losing 1v1s; so when they do, they rage, they call the class that beat them OP. It’s happened to warriors. It’s happened to thieves. And it’s happened, over and over again, to Mesmers.

However, sPvP (and WvW, for that matter) isn’t based around 1v1 duels. You can sit on home or far the whole match, win every 1v1, and still lose the match because you can’t/don’t contribute jack to the teamfight. Team contribution is wildly more important; Mesmers aren’t bought because they can win 1v1, they’re brought because they can portal their team, and they can unbalance teamfights with Moa.

Saying Mesmer is OP because it can win 1v1s is like the people who said Mesmer was OP because they couldn’t kill it in WvW roaming; it betrays a frightening lack of knowledge of what wins (or loses) the game overall.

1v1s happen alllll the time in a competitive match.

Moa Port? yes these two are factors, but what about the metas that we didnt have mesmers?

Moa and Port existed since the launch of the game.

If you read what I wrote, I said they are also picked for Moa and Portal.

For the record when did say mesmer is OP?

1v1s happen all the time, but they also don’t decide the match. Moa has been substantially strengthened by the addition of CS; whether it’s OP (or it’s not), that increased use of it has correspondingly increased all the whining on the forums about it. Before, it was just a huge-CD elite that people took because they preferred it to MI, and what the hell else were they going to take?

And yes, portal has always been in the game. And it’s always been the one skill that gave Mesmers any use in PvP, even when everything else about the profession stunk to high heaven. Then, as now, mesmers were on teams almost entirely for portal; now, we just have a build beyond that one skill that doesn’t feel like banging our heads against concrete.

My apologies if you didn’t mean to say mesmers were OP; I thought that was pretty well implied by your agreement with Azukas.

StickerHappy.8052:

Hate to burst the bubble but Azukas is mostly on point with his stuff.

I kind of feel like I need to deny this just on principle. For a more nuanced take on what Azukas is really, really not on point, the replies in this thread (and others) do a better job than I could in this post.

StickerHappy.8052:

Mesmers are the best 1v1 class in the game atm. This is coming from me who dueled countless mesmers, mesmer is my hardest matchup even on my ranger. Mesmers are not mainly gotten for Moa and port, its part of it but 1v1 ability is more of the deal breaker here.

Bull. But I do think you’ve hit on an important, maybe the important, point here. Mesmers are good at 1v1. They always have been; they were designed to be. We have an entire traitline called “Dueling,” for chrissake. People don’t like losing 1v1s; so when they do, they rage, they call the class that beat them OP. It’s happened to warriors. It’s happened to thieves. And it’s happened, over and over again, to Mesmers.

However, sPvP (and WvW, for that matter) isn’t based around 1v1 duels. You can sit on home or far the whole match, win every 1v1, and still lose the match because you can’t/don’t contribute jack to the teamfight. Team contribution is wildly more important; Mesmers aren’t bought because they can win 1v1, they’re brought because they can portal their team, and they can unbalance teamfights with Moa.

Saying Mesmer is OP because it can win 1v1s is like the people who said Mesmer was OP because they couldn’t kill it in WvW roaming; it betrays a frightening lack of knowledge of what wins (or loses) the game overall.

Frankly, if I were part of ANet or the balance team (I’m neither, and for good reason) and I thought that Moa needed tuning, my first thought would be to see if I could get someone to add a reasonable Moa heal skill, maybe including a condi cleanse with the heal. I could be way off base, but that would be my first thought.

That being said, I agree with the majority of the responses here: SoH is a powerful skill with significant trade-offs (Elite, huge CD, easily blocked/dodged/invulned/anything else) and is probably fine. If I have any concerns, it’s how the current viability of Mesmer rests more heavily than ever on two skills (portal/moa).

Azukas.1426:

Condi mesmer has always been OP. You just weren’t tournament viable with the build. Now anet has made it viable competitively.

I don’t know anything about your history with the game or this profession, aside from what I’ve seen in this thread and the PvP sub. But wow, does this statement smack of “hasn’t been playing Mesmer for long.”

Anyone who thinks Condi Mes was always OP is… well, it betrays a lack of knowledge, both with how to play mesmer and how to play against mesmer. Frankly, I’ve found most people who’ve felt that way in the past were thieves, who didn’t avoid confusion application, didn’t cleanse, and then pressed all of the buttons before raging as they died.

I agree with what seems to be the consensus.

Shatterer Re-work was very well done. Gliding is excellent. Lunar festival, hey, it’s a fun-if-limited event.

The balance patch is uninspiring at best. If balance patches are really supposed to only come 3 or 4 times a year, this patch was, frankly, not big enough. It was also, in my opinion, insufficient in actually balancing. In short, not enough was done, and what was done, was done with an axe instead of a scalpel.

Frankly, though, I don’t think the balance patches need to be bigger, I think they need to be considerably more frequent than every 3-4 months.

Mine is certainly not the most expert voice here, but you all know that. That being said, in my estimation, PvE feels more like the latter.

PvP… I’m trying to withhold judgement, but even in solo-queue (where I play 90% of the time), it’s already feeling like the former. Pretty much everything can take me on, and when I win a fight, it’s almost always with the sense that it was just because I was outplaying someone new to their profession, or similar.

Fay.2357:

You’re gonna need to clean yourself up after seeing Kung (forum censors this word) Master.

KungkittenMaster sounds… kinda racist, after the forum censor has its way with it.

online.1278:

Super OP : Rev, necro
Bit OP : engi, guardian, ranger
Normal :Ele, mes
Weak :Warrior, thief

Thanks, I needed a chuckle this morning.

Brill.7492:

You guys are pretty passionate about jumping ship. Got it.

We’re still feeling pretty burned at the moment, for most of us, I imagine it will pass. For what it’s worth, joking and current-hard-feelings aside, I’d definitely recommend taking chrono for a ride. We’re still a fun class with fun mechanics, for all of our imposed weakness.

And hey, there’s always hope for the future, right?

I did. I didn’t double check the amounts or anything, but I certainly got some mail with PvP refunds.

Infusion.7149:

Korusef.3714:

Chrono is still needed for WvW, that awesome speed trait was not nerfed …

alacrity was nerfed to 33%…

Pretty sure he’s referring to Time Marches On. But when the best you can say about a traitline is “Well hey, we don’t need to slot Traveler’s Runes any more…”

In this story, the pirate ship would be… Blade & Soul?

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

It really feels like their has been a major issue comprehending what was needed, and instead player QQ and whimsical idea’s has been the focus.

Pictured: GW2 Balance for the last yea— er, 2 year— er, forever.

Jace al Thor.6745:

Well yeah.
Half the people that claim it’s op have never played Mesmer before, and the half that has only played it in HJ where my dog could kill people.

Hand to God, I was screwing around in HJ once, walked away to get a drink, and came back to find I’d somehow killed someone. Hell, maybe a cat walked across the keyboard.

kuritsutian.2987:

Dat hate on Ele, all classes got buffs, only ele and mesmer got nerfed, yet mesmers got compensated a little, eles tho…. got even lightning rod nerfed!!!

I’m not gonna deny that Mesmers and Eles both got the ugly side of the stick on this one, but Mesmers didn’t really get any compensation. The scepter “buffs” are laughable-at-best. A small buff to a trait no one uses, and the smallest possible QoL change to 1/3rd of a broken AA chain that should have been implemented years ago.

Eh, I suspect we’ll still be wanted for Quickness/Alacrity in raids, even with the nerfs. Exactly one of us.

These changes just ensure that we have more-or-less nothing else to bring to the table besides Quickness/Alacrity. Back to buff bot, boys!

Don’t worry, Silverkey, just like everyone’s been saying the past few weeks: It was only a preview, let’s wait to see the awesome balance changes they didn’t mention!

…oh wait.

I’ve seen a few different people wonder why they even bothered mentioning Scepters, when the changes that we end up getting feel so minor. (You know, a small buff to a trait no one uses and a single, although long-needed, QoL change. Real game-changers.) I was thinking about that myself as I pondered the patch notes, and I came up with this:

Does anyone else feel like they were going for “poetry” in the Q1 statement, of everyone-gets-a-buff, everyone-gets-a-nerf, and they just… didn’t have any buffs to actually write about for Mesmers?

Mikkel.8427:

I can’t wait for patch day, when we’ll all discover they also lowered the duration of chaos armor from staff 4 to ‘normalize’ it with ‘other aura producing skills’ aka- Ele auras.

Oh God, this is going to happen, isn’kitten This is probably going to happen. XD

EDIT: So… “isn’t it” becomes “isn’kitten.” Good to know.

For what it’s worth, the chaos armor nerf is a pretty big pain in the kitten for condi mesmer. If anyone is still running condi mesmer at this point, when it keeps getting pounded into the ground with every change.

Nova Stiker.8396:

God tier:
Chronomancers

Good tier:
Scrappers
Tempests
Thieves
Revenants

Okay tier:
Druids
Berzerkers
Dragonhunters

Garbage tier:
Necromancers

---

What people forgot:
Mesmers absolutely thrive in glassy metas and Chronomancer only makes them more devastating.
Tempests have fairly strong DPS, where there is a lot of glassier targets they can really lay on the damage.
Scrappers DPS and survivability is still stupid, just shows how terrible ArenaNet is at balancing but at least they aren’t super strong in teamfights? ArenaNet, get a new balance team..
Thieves will still be thieves.
Revenants will still be revenants.
Druids will suffer heavily with the removal of the tanky amulets.
Berserkers will be 1-trick ponies.
Dragonhunters will still fart out 0 casting time traps because terrible design.

Necromancers will suffer the most, the more glassy the enemy, the less survivability they will have. Life force will be a constant struggle (unless exploiting map bugs like Khylo, EEEESPPPURTZ) they thieve in a meta where they can’t hit targets. The less of a chance they get to build life force, the more useless they become.

::Dies laughing::

Lin.8905:

I still have about 12 days i need to achieve, but leagues finishes in about a week?

I think I only missed one day or two.

How are we expected to finish?

You aren’t. Even missing no days, you wouldn’t get the 60 days needed. The legendary Wings are apparently intended to take more than one season to complete.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Stop whining about the nerf, start asking for buffs to base mesmer!
#Phantasms are now affected by all damage mods of the mesmer!

Frankly, I think both are called for. (And I suspect neither will receive any real response from ANet in the next 6 months, earliest.)

It’s not whining to question the alacrity changes as an overnerf, and to question the reasoning behind them. It’s also worth pointing out, as people have, that they told us to expect iterative changes with their balance; whatever the math is, 66% to 33% is not an iterative change where Mesmers are concerned.

(It’s also worth asking why Mesmers need a nerf because other professions have too high DPS. And I don’t accept that that’s just the wages of being a support-oriented class.)

That being said, you (and I, and a lot of other people) have a valid point, that the problem here isn’t alacrity, it’s that alacrity was a bandaid for the Mesmer’s deeper failings, in regards to DPS particularly. And it’s worth asking them to try to actually treat the wound, particularly if they insist on removing the band-aid.

You make good points. And your reasoning about ANet needing to fix base Mes is sound. But I know it’s also something people have been trying to get done for, well, the entire life of this game, so I think a lot of people aren’t all that optimistic.

Fay.2357:

What you’re going to see, though, is a lot of raid groups taking a hard look at the lower performing members of the team, and ditching them for more burnzerkers.

Because raid groups should never be pushed to have more than one of any given profession. Unless it’s a burnzerker.

Xyonon.3987:

Molch.2078:

Skills with a cooldown (and no activation time) have their contribution to the total dps of a rotation, build or class increased by 66% while under the effect of alacrity.

This is correct. Nothing to say more about it.

Meanwhile quickness increases your dps by 50%, if you are only using skills with a cast time higher than 0 and without CD.

And then there is the mix of those two together, wich is affected by rotation and uptime.

btw – what are we talking about here anyway?

The problem with this is, it’s ANet basically saying “Mesmer needs a nerf to their DPS support, because other classes have too much DPS and benefit too much from the support.”

I’m not even saying they’re wrong; I think they’re right, there are some classes with wildly unbalanced DPS, and their DPS becomes even more wildly unbalanced with Alacrity/Quickness. Trouble is, Mesmer DPS is not wildly unbalanced. It is, in fact, in the tank. So when they nerf our DPS support, and don’t actually do anything to fix our dismal DPS itself, it’s a one-two punch to Mesmer viability.

That’s what we need to be talking about here, math arguments aside.

EDIT: Just to add, 4 months ago, during the last beta weekend, Alpha made a comment about how, if alacrity made icebow too strong, that probably says more about icebow than it does about chrono or alacrity. I made a joke about how icebow was OP, so Mesmer needs a nerf. That joke is bittersweet as hell, now.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

There aren’t 2 groups. Not everyone who will stop playing mesmer is FOTM, and not everyone who will keep playing mesmer is a diehard.

I’ve played mesmer a long time. I doggedly played my condi mesmer before June 23, even though I knew it was suboptimal. But you know, I could only play it in certain modes, even then.

But now, I’ve got a wonderful condi reaper, a daredevil, herald, druid, condi tempest, condizerker, power reaper, sinister engi, and cele guard in my stable of alternatives. And you know what?
This nerf seems guaranteed to make most of those more palatable to play than my mesmer, fun as the mechanics on mes are.

+1

I mean, I enjoy Mesmer enough that I’ll keep playing it when I’m screwing around. What this nerf does, assuming it goes through, is guarantee I won’t be playing mesmer for anything even halfway serious or competitive. Not raids. Maybe not fractals. Certainly not PvP.

Tera.2638:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

It’s disheartening.

I have more wins then losses, and yet I can’t progress. The way this league is set up I feel like I’m stuck in MMR hell.

This is exactly where I’m at. I feel your pain.

Schurge.5194:

The thing is, I don’t expect to get past Emerald… and if I were to attempt to get past Emerald I would want a more regular team. I didn’t realize people this casual expected to max this kitten out. If you go back four months you will find threads on this forum predicting that most players would be stuck in the middling tiers with the truly terrible at the bottom and the dedicated pushing through to the top.

Even before, if you wanted a better then 60% win rate you needed a team or incredible luck. Just because everything else in PvP is just given to you through the virtue of time doesn’t mean the Legendary nameplate will be. There are broken things that will be fixed but this is day three and “I refuse to use TS” Joe Blow was never the target of Leagues.

Thing is, I don’t buy that “real life prevents me from having a regular team to pvp with” is so casual that we shouldn’t be able to advance past the very beginning of the second tier. I have no illusions about being a masterful PvP player, but when the only thing keeping me from advancing past “beginner” is apparently solo-q matchmaking, that’s a legitimate kittening gripe. Particularly when I see the streamers who are some of the best PvPers facing the same issue, if they solo-queue.

Like I said, I’ve made my peace with it. But it’s disheartening. And frankly, I think it’s unreasonable. Differing opinons, I guess.

Yeah, it was just tonight that I made my peace with the fact that I’ll probably never make it out of Emerald as a solo-queuer. And that’s a shame, because I like PvP. I think I’m acceptable-to-good at it. I just don’t have the time to devote to a full PvP team.

It’s disheartening.

Still, it sounds to me like Rastaaa’s point is that sometimes you have a momentary DC or whatever, but manage to get back into the match within a minute or two. Do those players really deserve the dishonor penalty? I would argue not.

There should be a short grace period (there is, although it might be too short), to account for DC/RCs. After that, I agree, DCing sucks, but you’ll just have to wait out the 35 minutes.

EDIT: First time on the forum in a few days, reading down I see this is a repeat thread of a topic being pretty exhaustively discussed. Just ignore me. XD

Orion Templar.4589:

I just passed the mission by myself, and when it finally worked I thought it was pretty fun and just the right amount of challenge. I had to attempt it a few times. A couple times because it was a tough fight and I was still learning the mechanics – this is a good thing. Trying again and finally learning it and succeeding brings a sense of accomplishment.

It’s a good fight. A really good fight. That’s what makes the bugs so infuriating. Because every time I mess up and die (or every time an updraft doesn’t work, and I die), I know I need to go play through the whole pre-sequence for the 100th time.

It’s turning one of the best-designed story fights in this game, into a painful, infuriating slog.

morrolan.9608:

So no fixes for Hearts and Minds in the patch. I would have thought it was a top priority.

You would think.

It’s really, sincerely depressing. Like, I realize that functionality has to come before aesthetics. But before, I really felt like a mesmer when I dropped wells. Now… I kind of just feel like a purple necromancer.

For anyone keeping track here, the final Mordremoth fight has not apparently had any fixes. Rifts still spawn in midair, updrafts still work sporadically-at-best, etc.

Malin.2490:

Hearts and Minds bugs, 3 player party, instance owner Sylvari (I did a bug report as well).

1: Sylvari turns hostile, we react instinctively and kills her. Upon Caithe ressing her, she remains red and encounter can’t progress. We spend about half an hour taking advantage of this impromptu arena while dodging mordremoth…

2: Next try, everything works fine until it is time for the floor is lava thing where we are supposed to glide or use the shield. No shield. No updrafts. So we die.

3: When we retry with the retry emote, the first rift that spawns is in the air, so we can’t reach it. Maybe the ground was destroyed in a previous phase? Not sure. Anyway, by then we decide to wait until the bugs are fixed. Too bad, really loving the story!

2 and 3, so much. I’ve been doing the fight solo, so I can’t speak to 1.

Basically, I’ve poured 5 or 6 hours into trying to complete this fight. Every attempt, either the updrafts fail (as far as I can tell), or the rift spawns in midair. It’s a fantastic fight, I’ve enjoyed the 80% of it I’ve managed to play through. But the bugs make it downright unplayable, to say nothing of unpleasant.

So, this boss fight is basically not completable for me. I’ve come to that conclusion.

I fight most of the way through, and I can’t manage to avoid the massive AoE. I assume I just missed the updrafts, fine. Restart.

Rift spawns in midair. That’s an obvious bug. Intentionally kill myself, report, restart.

Rift spawns in midair again. Kill myself, restart.

I get to the second massive AoE, can’t stay in the air. Beginning to think there’s something wrong with the updrafts. Restart.

Rift spawns in midair. I give up for the night.

Next day: Can’t stay in the air. Restart. Rift spawns in midair. Restart. Rift spawns in midair. Give up.

I mean, it’s a very well-designed fight. But these bugs, as they are now, makes it undoable and unpleasant. And I’m saying that after a good 5 or 6 hours of trying.

Kitten armor OP, too cute.

Another +1. I can’t even say how much more enjoyable PvE content feels, now.

Tetsuji.5937:

Dude your not seeing the point You do understand that you can do the furry dodge for like 3 seconds then shatter stealth and hide away then set up for another burst then repeat. not only thaty ou reset the fight. Mesmers have extremely good condi clear the only class that doesnt have good condi clear is thief Ive seen rangers clear condis faster. Ialso changed it because people are stupid and dont understand what im trying to point towards with the title. The issue atm is Mesmers are getting babied by anet and not getting hard nerf’d like they need. Burns are ticking for way to much. and Celestial ammy is allowing players to full heal like Eles and Engineers. Not to mention sigil of blood is still broken after 3 months. No healing from it.

You’re mixing up at least 2 if not 3 separate Mesmer builds. Mesmer’s have kitten condi clear unless they run Inspiration; if they do, then they have much less stealth.

Sword 2 is literally lower DPS than the Sword AA. Yes, it has some defensive utility. Lord forbid a class should have some defensive utilities. Maybe if you slotted a few yourself, we wouldn’t have to listen to you whine about getting killed by other classes, shouting “OP.”

This is an amazing kittening idea. It would make chrono illusion managment so much more… manageable.

Oh god, clones are so cheap. Only scrub mesmers use clones.

EDIT: Sarcasm. Thought that was obvious, sorry.

Something to keep in mind with the scepter: The third part of the AA chain (the clone summon) has a significant aftercast that slows down the whole chain, apparently based on when the third attack projectile connects and the clone is summoned.

So, even though it’s kind of a range weapon, the AA is much more effective in melee range.

Silverkey.2078:

That is exactly why a few people mentioned that you gain 0.66s CD reduction for each second of alacrity BUT you cannot reduce the cooldowns by more than 40%. So for the traited cooldown, the time is actually 12s cooldown, using 12s alacrity which indeed corresponds to 8s cooldown reduction (the extra second of alacrity is wasted on this skill).

Edited to fix, wasn’t accounting for that.