Guild Wars 2

virus.4370:

Fluffball.8307:

No one lacks the vision to see the potential of nomads which is why it will never be in PvP.

thats says to me you lack the vision to think outside the box ..on builds

He means it would be too powerful to introduce it in pvp, where holding points against people is a thing.

How you would use that thing anywhere else is totally beyond me. You must go through content in slow-motion.

.

Shovel Face.4512:

i played 40 odd games and did good, ergo: Match making is a-ok

You need to realize that just because you do good, be it luck or skill does not magically make issues other people have not relevant.

For instance, soloqueue for me thinks its funny to stack multiple classes of one kind in one team or the other. I frequently fight 3 dragonhunters (non on my team) or 4 Necros (non on my team) and fight with 3 revnants (non on their team). This isnt so much a statement that one team has “better classes”, but that a more balanced team would be a matter of simply switching one player out with another.

And yes, you can obviously switch classes to better compliment your team, but what if you are already the odd one out? Not to say that its quite likely that you’ll perform poorly with a class you are not used to.

And for the record, i am doing pretty well, this is not me blaming matchmaking for not beeing able to progress – because i have no issues progressing. But it would be nice to not depend on not getting 3 classes in your team that get hardcountered by 3 classes in the opposite team, while your teammates are obviously unwilling to switch. There are more fun matchups than 3 revs vs 3 necros.

Bazooka.3590:

The solution would be ez. You can play league matches only if you have at least a 1000 ranked palyed before. But anet dont give a kitten about the old players they only want to satisfy the wing hungry newbies.

Dont be ridiculous. The issue of SPvP is lack of players, not “newbies ruining your fun”.

If you “incredible PvPers” would be half as decent as you suggest, a good amount of bad players would only help you, not the other way round.

Taltevus.3289:

It’s obvious conditions need a design rework.
It’s obvious some classes do too much damage.
It’s obvious that there are just fundamental flaws in how the game modes play.
It’s obvious build diversity is low and needs expanding.
It’s obvious people want a quality product.
It’s obvious SPVP needs an explicit rule-book.

While most of those things might be an issue to some degree, this is not what is killing spvp.

What kills spvp is:

a. *RNG progression kittenblock. *
Its mindblowing that the same amount of wins/losses result in different progression for people, just because they happen in different order.

b. Fodder vs. matchmaking
The matchmaking balances teams in a way, that there is a winner team and a looser team. To what degree this is happening doesnt really matter. Because with as little players as we have now in SPvP this results in huge blowouts. Getting farmed at spawn isnt exactly good motivation to keep playing. In an ideal world, matchmaking would also consider professions when in the queue, and not stack them up in either team.

c. Two gamemode and 6 maps.
For how many years now? I also stopped queing up for conquest ages ago. Give it some kittening effort.

d. give it a kittening tutorial
Players just want to kill other players, chase them around and win. But they cant win if they chase players around to try to kill them. Some mandatory tutorial match for any beginner instead of the senseless 10 pvp ranks before beeing allowed to queue for ranked would be a better idea, and not a completely arbitrary limit. That leaves people with a skill gap, but at least people understand the gamemode.

Anet needs to realize that them balancing the game and making matchmaking for the few on the top is more harmful than anything else.

The entire system would probably work well if it had 10 times more players than we have now. But we dont. Setting up teams as “fodder” for “pro” players and stacking players with high MMR vs others with lower MMR has got to be the most sadistic nonsensical idea with as little players as we have now as you can come up with.

Its going to make players leave SPvP and make it even worse than it was before.

Shiyo.3578:

JTGuevara.9018:

I’d like to emphasize more weaknesses of warrior.

NO protection
NO invulns
NO evades

What game are you playing? Warriors can endure pain x2 and block for 3s every 20s + reflect projectiles then block again and reflect ALL projectiles(only blocks 1 attack but all projs) and has multiple forms of resistance.

Warriors basically run around invincible 90% of the time then randomly turn around and attempt to 1 shot you, then keep running around invincible.

I hope you are beeing sarcastic, because… thats so far from the reality, its not even funny.

Azukas.1426:

Thanks for the attention

I am starting to get a pretty good picture of why you are pretending to be a mesmer on the mesmer forums screaming for nerfs.

Azukas.1426:

I think all the pro league mesmers aren’t mesmers either since they echo what I’m saying lol.

Just to reiterate what i said in another thread. The opinion of three people playing the highest level of PVP is not indicative of the state a class is in any form. Mesmer might be incredible in a party of 5 coordinated players that doesnt allow stacking classes. But i have lost – and won- so many times against/with multi-mesmer teams in spvp, that i can at least state that on their own mesmers are not wrecking kitten and not a “we win, because we have 5 mesmers on the team” situation, as it was with necros last season.

Yes, mesmers are incredibly powerful. For the role they have which is effectively beeing able to hold a point against most classes (moa) while helping out on another point (portal). That doesnt automatically make them gods everywhere else, as you are suggesting. But i digress, arguing with you is a collosal waste of time, because by this point i am pretty sure you are just attention kitten.

It is true, for survivability the mesmer is probably on the very top of the list. Every weapon we have has some defense added to it, f4 and f5 are get out of jail cards.
Run something like sword/shield sword/sword and you can do most of the content solo, no issue.

The problem is that both damage and AoE are pretty much terrible. Compared to a zerker reaper who has just as much sustain and pretty much twice the damage, there really is no reason to run chrono over a reaper for solo work.

For instance, I did HoT storymode solo, and my reaper was at least twice as fast and never died either.

Our current meta pvp build:

1. Manhandles our core mechanic so it does 89% of the builds damage output.

2. Uses the weapons it does completely for utility/defense and clone spam.

3. Gets all of its sustain and condi cleanse from spamming our core mechanic.

The current strengths of the pvp build have very little to do with mesmer actually beeing in a good state. Our weapons are mostly garbage and have far too little damage and way too much damage mitigation. But since the metabuild kitten s our fairly well balanced cooldown dependant core mechanic to do all things the mesmer is usually terrible at (condi cleanse, sustain, condi application) all we can look forward to is further nerfs to the core spec without ever adressing how kitten most of our weapons and utilities are.

Lets be honest here, the nerf didnt change anything.

Moa is still the only way to break bunkers, core mesmer is even worse off than it was.
Mesmers are still going to bear the stigma of “super OP, cant beat any mesmer ever”, even though its very easy to chain CC us to death.

Oh well.

Silverkey.2078:

Well I only assumed SoI doubles tides of time and well of action. The reasoning is simple, at the start of the fight, you cast TW which applies 1s quickness every second (assuming 0 boon duration). This means the first 11s, you have quickness on you. During this time, you also cast well of action + tides of time. Those 6s quickness just add up to what you currently have, you don’t consume them thanks to the already existing quickness from time warp. So SoI effectively double those 6s.

In reality, because of boon duration, time warp will actually also stack a little extra quickness, and thus my calculation actually underestimate the final result.

Then, the second time, when well of action and tides of time are back on CD, you still have the accumulated quickness from before (for this you DO need boon duration, but I did say that) and thus the 6s extra second of quickness DO stack and are multiplied (on top of whatever quickness left from the first casts) by SoI.

So it does work as long as you have enough boon duration to get 100% uptime.

If CS is not removed but just changed to not cast TW, then this is even easier since the second SoI will double not only the current WoA + ToT but also the very high amount accumulated during CS.

So here, reaching 100% duration is even easier.

Your assumptions on quickness stacking are wrong. There is a maximum size of stacks (iirc 9), applying quickness sources beyond that will push out the old stacks.

In the usual quickness rotation the mesmer does, there is a great deal of quickness that doesnt get transfered with SoI because of the cap. CS is basically the only thing that really does “double up” on all quickness sources, because it resets the skills.

At any rate, mesmer is nice to play in dungeons and fractals because we have a unique role, but our damage is abysmal. Any content that doesnt involve small organized parties that will be wailing on bosses for some duration of time as a mesmer will likely make you want to stab yourself in the eye.

I dont mind the least bit if CS gets nerfed in one form or another. But if they do not rework phantasms, specifically delete them and rework their damage into the respective weapon skills or make them summons ala necromancer, Mesmer will always feel incredibly clunky to play on anything but bossfights.

And that isnt happening ever.

Silverkey.2078:

Also, once CS is nerfed, a-net may not feel as guilty in increasing our sustained damage which would be positive for both PvE and PvP mesmers.

For us to be good and feel good in pve, Anet would have to remove phantasms and rework them into our weapons damage. And i dont see that happening, ever.

That said, personally, i am quite fine beeing a group supporter, i have long given up on doing any meaningful damage by myself in pve. But i think its very understandable that people who enjoy pve go on the barricades when they hear “nerfs” while beeing quite underwhelming in the area they enjoy.

Well, welcome to GW2 pvp. Every single class has one or at most two viable builds. We now do too.

HoT destroyed build diversity for almost every class, simply because all you have to work with are two traitlines. But here is the thing, this is true for all the classes and not a warrior specific issue.

Azukas.1426:

My point is the same people defending that build are the same ones who are defending this build

Bolded parts for emphasis.

Because you need to stop right there and rethink your argument. What has a WvW solo roaming build got to do with spvp. What has a chrono bunker build that got nerfed out of the meta completely have to do with the balance of mesmer in spvp?

Nothing.

Make an argument that consists of more than “this is a fact!” or “you guys are biased!”, preferably using actual facts. (that you should be able to come up with easily, because as you said in this thread about a billion times, you play mesmer….. or do you.. dum dum duuuuum.)

ReaperJr.5967:

Lol good chronos will rekt you easy no matter what build you are on. Because of two reasons. 1. They are condition based, countering warrior. 2. They will just kite you the entire match, you won’t be able to even get close.

No offense but those who said chrono is beatable obviously haven’t fought good ones.

Keep telling yourself that.

I am sure throwing your hands in the air and yelling “oh my god its a chrono, might as well lie down” is a good solution as well. If you ever get tired of that, i detailed in a previous post in this thread how to beat meta chronos, as long as you pay attention.

Zerk warriors have some of the best condi cleanse and resistance uptime in the game, i beat most condi builds with zero effort, as long as i get in quick enough and get berserker mode off.

In fact, i much prefer chronos as a matchup instead of scrappers and revs. Good scrappers, i never beat. Revs i have about a 50:50 chance.

StickerHappy.8052:

snip

Yes, mesmers are good 1vs1, but the issue here is that they are good because people are completely unwilling to learn what makes a mesmer good in those situations, and how to prevent it.

People spam buttons. Most of the players i face, thought it is an awesome idea to simply spam more buttons when the insanely obvious block bubble pops up. Do you know why its most likely the most obvious skill in the game? Because that skill is the linchpin of most of the mesmers damage and sustain. Its two phantoms, that turn into 1×2 clones to shatter and 1×3 clones for a second shatter.

Thats heals, condi clears damage and mitigation. If you have an unblockable skill on your class and some interrupt you can completely rip the mesmers damage and sustain apart. If you just dont attack the bubble, you still make the mesmer weapon switch at least and force him to have a much higher ramp up time.

Do people do that? No.

When i play my warrior and face mesmers though, i eat them. Why? Because i know how their skills work, and i dont roll my face on the keyboard to win fights.

What above poster said.

To add to that, if you see the purple bubble up and have something to make you unblockable, that is the time to use stuns. (sorry, not a thief player)

If you interrupt the block cast the mesmer is mostly dead meat, if you dont senselessly attack him while he is doing blurred frenzy.

ReaperJr.5967:

Chrono
Another un-winnable matchup. Condi chrono is just so faceroll and effective atm you just get destroyed so just run.

Chronos are actually very beatable with a power build (using GS axe/shield) as long as you slot signet of might and interrupt their shield channel with head butt or shield bash. They will lose a majority of their DPS due to losing out on two summons they can shatter twice, and almost all of their sustain.

If you then watch out for signet of humility cast (glowy hands, both held up in the air) and landed your bursts its GG. Very importat is, that if you get moaed, press 5, 2 3 and autoattack. More often than not you’ll still burst the mesmer down because he has no defensive procs left other than a short f4 because he ran out of clones. (and if he uses that to defend against moa, its GG anyways).

Just dont do what above poster said and throw up your hands in the air because you “dont stand a chance anyway”. You just need to time your abilities and keep your stuns and signet of might ready for when you see the purple bubble.

Azukas.1426:

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

If anything, condi mesmer before HoT was the niche build of niche builds.

If any statement in this thread screams “i have never actually played a mesmer before they became meta!” it is this.

Maybe, someday in the future you’ll try to actually learn to play against mesmers and other classes you make those threads in. (because i have no doubt thats what you do, getting your kitten handed to you and then make a veiled “nerf us we so OP” thread in their class forums pretending you play the class).

I dont get it, how does discipline force you to use a longbow?

I think the main issue with power shatter vs condi shatter is that condi shatter manhandles your core mechanics to do condis on every shatter via illusions.

Power just doesnt have that option. There is little synergy between a constant supply of clones and a cooldown on f1.

drcraig.9403:

Furajir.3815:

Been extensively testing new adrenal health.

Once Zerker stance goes down, after HS active as last resorts fades, still get melted by condis even with 3 stacks of Adrenal Health.

Surprise Surprise, the band aid isn’t working.

I’ve experienced the same thing. Adrenal health is a good start but we need more.

I have been playing a power based warrior intensively for the last couple of days in spvp, and i can honestly say… NO.

We have insane condi removal and surivability right now. I have been completely wrecking stuff left and right without too many issues, including mesmers necros and condi thiefs.

I have no idea what more you people want, warrior is perfectly fine as is. Some build variety to get out of the “def/disc/bers” trinity would be nice, but as is, i see very little reason to complain.

edit: I used almost the exact same build as poster above, with shield master instead of dogged march and eternal champion instead of bloody roar instead.

Fara.9835:

Did they fix the signet bug ?

Yup, bug was fixed pretty quickly.

Caedmon.6798:

Cus of people like You,anet is making whack decisions,give it some kittening time.

If the patch has shown one thing it is that Anet doesnt care what people write on the profession forums.

(and i am considering that as something very very positive. The forum dwellers of GW2 are some of the most inane people i have ever seen.)

Loboling.5293:

Focusing a target is a pain.

Does it dodge?
Does it strafe?
Does it use any other skill than 1?
Does it do any incredible tricks, like walking backward?
Does it have a signet buff on it?

It be the mesemer.

With the meta build (that has zero ways to break target), once you have the mesmer figured out, you have figured out the mesmer for good. If this takes you more than half a second, practice. Dont pray that there is a sudden shift in meta and there are less of them around.

Another thing for the highly skilled people out there, and a pro tip:
Autoattacking the Mesmer to try and get him from 100-0 like that is likely going to blow you up. Burst during resistance, burst after condi cleanse dont spam keys when you have 14 stacks of confusion on you. (how? do you not know how to dodge?)

Expiatus.4210:

So I figured it out, mesmers are Kralkatorrik minions, so its not a PvP match but a mini-boss fight. PvM – Player versus Mesmer! The other 4 players are just adds/trash mobs.

The new meta will be a 5 man comp—tank, dps and one support just to take on the mesmer and their triple alacrity uber PU shatter attack, all the while dodging the power wells of timey-whimey stuff.

Usually when a match starts and i see no mesmers on the enemy team, i just tell everyone to sit back and ejoy, because i got this. I then just press my elite and have 90% uptime of moa on everone. Because continuum split allows me to travel back in time, thus clone myself and multiply my uses of everything. The issue is when another mesmer is on the team, then its called the “time wars” and the server is likely to explode.

In all seriousness though, i think the biggest issue with the mesmer is that its counters are not meta faceroll builds. DH were pretty decent against mesmers in s2 already and looking at the buffs to warrior and thief in particular it seems those two professions will have a much easier time with mesmer, assuming equal skill levels.

We’ll have to wait and see, right now its as likely the rioters will storm Anet first and force them to nerf mesmer. (and that is before s3 even started)

You could probably do well enough with a condition damage build using scepter/pistol and whatever else. Using the trait that gives illusions bleed on crit, and phantasmal fury. Its the highest single target damage we can get.

But… for open world pve? This is going to suck tremendously. You have sufficiently high DPS for champions and bosses (like anyone really cares) but your aoe tagging abilities are reliant on you shattering as your only source of AoE. And since your clones die when things die, realistically you will use f1 with you as the only clone up to tag stuff.

Not saying this cant work, but open world isnt exactly the strong suit of the mesmer. Imho the best idea is to use some quickness sharing build with two wells timewarp and signet of inspiration, and work your way from there to a weapon set you like.

Heaving optimal DPS is of secondary importance if you are in the optimal setup a mesmer can have in pve.

Azukas.1426:

Double Moa says no.

If you get hit by moa not only once, but twice in any duel situation, you are so bad.

Thats literally the only thing you need to watch out for.

Azukas.1426:

Cataca.3867:

Azukas.1426:

We’ve been on the topic of how beast our class is since page 1.

People complaining about PvE just happened

People have been telling you since page one, that the only reason mesmer is meta is an elite and a utility skill that currently make or break tournaments in spvp.

Instant long-distance relocation and complete shutdown of another class for 10 seconds are the most broken abilities in the game, i think even among mesmers, noone would dispute that. Many teams would take those two abilities even if it meant bringing a complete deadweight. Thats the entirety of your argument and your great “fact”.

Other than that this class has had its weapon sets nerfed to the point where we basically get carried by the modified shatters from the illusions traitline (illusionary retribution and maim the disillusioned) that gives conditions to all our shatters.

The only reason condi mesmer works as it does is that our core mechanics get changed from “every shatter does this” to “every shatter does conditions and something else”.

So currently mesmer depends on a traitline for all of the condition damage and two overpowered abilities, while basically heaving their weapons for utility and mitigation.
Thats the grand state the mesmer is in. A patchwork bandaid build that somehow works out in one of the 3 major gamemodes.

For every other gamemode, yes we bring something unique to the table, sometimes good enough to give us a guaranteed slot, but never our baseline abilities.

The meta build for mesmer is FAR more than just moa and portal. The pressure we put out is insane.

Do me a favor and watch Jebro’s plays of the week. The last play will open your eyes since all players are pro league.

Yes the moa did come out but it was in a very delicious way.

Why the hell did you even quote my post? Nothing you said has anything to do with what i wrote. Nothing.

The TLDR of what i wrote in my post is: “Condi mesmer works because two traits in the illusion line manhandle our core mechanics enough to make it: f1-f4 are now condition skills. Take that away and we are a dead class in spvp, because everything else has been nerfed to hell and back”.

Not “Mesmer so weak!”

At least, try to read what other people write, kittening rude. And i dont give a hoot about some streamer, i play passable myself.

I really wish they would just display your MMR, because this guessing game isnt doing a whole lot for motivation.

Then you would just block all the bad players and ensure that you are up against them, cant really work that way.

Locuz.2651:

Fair fights were so seldom,

You know why even fights seem to be a rarity?

Since this meta isnt bunkery. So matches tend to snowball in one way or the other. Single players can steamroll players below their level of play in record time.

If you want the game to have more even matches youre basicly asking to lower the skillfloor/ceiling and increase overall sustain.

Yeah, burst power builds are all the rage. Everyone is playing it!

I am asking for matchmaking that considers MMR of both party and opponents, so everyone is matched against players of similar skill, rather than with.

Not a huge meta change. (of which you seem to have a funny idea anyhow)

Ross Biddle.2367:

Just do what I do

WIN

Out of 56 games you had 6 losses one desertion and 49 wins, which is incredible, kudos to you. (i am not sarcastic here)
Out of 49 wins, 32 are games you won with a lead of 250 points or more, which is the best statement anyone could ever make that the matchmaking system is completely non functional.

Wouldnt you, as a player be happier if your opponents were not complete muppets either?

I am not suggesting that you got carried by your MMR or teammates, but if this is solo queue, its pretty obvious that most of those matches were decided by vastly inferior oponents, rather than player skill.

Daroon.1736:

“pair you up with teammates who have a similar skill level to your own. We’ll then find you opponents within that same pip range and pair them against you, regardless of their skill level.”

^^
That’s why – And that is why the whole season has been A pile of Kitten

This.

Out of the ~30-40 ranked matches i have played this season there were literally only three where i felt “hey, had i performed a little better this could have been a win!” or “that was a close one, had i not capped that point back then, we’d have lost.”

Either my teammates were complete muppets and were barley able to walk straight lines without falling over, or the opposing team were overwhelmingly well coordinated. Or i fought against people that basically repeatedly ran into their own swords.

Fair fights were so seldom, i remember a 450-500 map, where i fought over every single point with claws and teeth and had to perform to my utmost. For me it was the most fun game i had in ranked, and i wrote as such in the map chat afterwards. And the enemy team echoed me enthusiasticly. I chatted up with one of the enemy players afterwards and he told me the same thing, matches lean overwhelmingly one way or another and its just no fun.

And even though i wasnt doing badly on ranked, i completely stopped playing that gamemode. Unranked queue gave me vastly more fun fights, and i’ll not bash my head against the wall to grind for ugly wings when i am playing a game for fun.

Blackmoa.3186:

to be fair alot of the problem isnt that conditions are too strong but that there is way too much dmg reduction, i.e. how are you supposed to kill a reaper with rise up, next to a bullwark gyro and with protection if not with condis?

I completely agree with this. The reason why the meta shifted so heavily to conditions is that there are boons, class feats, armor and toughness that can lower the damage of normal attacks, and they stack additively (which is completely kittened). Condis on the other hand only have active mitigation (blocks and aegis + dodge) and some minor feats that dont really go beyond 10-15%.

vana.5467:

Ellie.5913:

I think a better explanation is that the people in charge of pvp just don’t know how to make a pvp game (…)

I don’t know. For instance, when it comes to combat design, I think the first round of powercreep (June 23rd update) was an accident, but I don’t see the ridiculousness of the elite specs being unintentional. There’s just no way they’re that out of touch with the game. When such a large portion of the playerbase, including many top players, show a strong preference (mildly put) for the 2014/early 2015 pre-powercreep metagames but nothing is being changed, you have to think the developers are being forced not to act. The alternative is just sad.

The reason for that is pretty obvious. Making elite specs mandatory for any sort of competitive play means that everyone has to buy HoT.

Azukas.1426:

We’ve been on the topic of how beast our class is since page 1.

People complaining about PvE just happened

People have been telling you since page one, that the only reason mesmer is meta is an elite and a utility skill that currently make or break tournaments in spvp.

Instant long-distance relocation and complete shutdown of another class for 10 seconds are the most broken abilities in the game, i think even among mesmers, noone would dispute that. Many teams would take those two abilities even if it meant bringing a complete deadweight. Thats the entirety of your argument and your great “fact”.

Other than that this class has had its weapon sets nerfed to the point where we basically get carried by the modified shatters from the illusions traitline (illusionary retribution and maim the disillusioned) that gives conditions to all our shatters.

The only reason condi mesmer works as it does is that our core mechanics get changed from “every shatter does this” to “every shatter does conditions and something else”.

So currently mesmer depends on a traitline for all of the condition damage and two overpowered abilities, while basically heaving their weapons for utility and mitigation.
Thats the grand state the mesmer is in. A patchwork bandaid build that somehow works out in one of the 3 major gamemodes.

For every other gamemode, yes we bring something unique to the table, sometimes good enough to give us a guaranteed slot, but never our baseline abilities.

NineOnine.4327:

I’m not sure if im the only one, but I feel there’s no reason to rejoice. Things like “Immobilize stacks 5 times” how many reliable ways do we have to do that compared to other classes? We have the worst condi removal on top of that.

Or “Sic ’Em: This shout now applies 4 seconds of revealed on the targeted enemy”. How is this not an indirect nerf?

Who wants to run around for 3ish seconds casting mantras in the middle of a fight…

Compared to what most other classes got we’re lower than we were before. If they wanted to increase our support why not increase projectile speed on staff a bit.. or reduce the cooldown of sigent of insp by 5-10 second.

While i agree that there really isnt much reason to rejoice, i dont see other classes heaving parties because of overwhelming buffs (cuz there arnt any). Actually, all the class profession forums read like the world is ending.

Honestly, the mesmer has a few issues, but none of those that you listed. We pretty much stayed the same as we were, with scepter getting a nice boost and mantras getting a minor one.

veil AND portal. so OP

Darnis.4056:

It’s a mesmer oriented discussion :/
Look these guys want a mesmer rework, maybe we can make suggestions to and get a better deal in the end?

Say Make Phantasmal Warlock deal eviscerate/backstab damage(13-16k) instead of 2-3k but fire off only once?.. that sounds fair right?

Thus far there hasnt been much complaint about the skills themselves, but the mesmer core mechanics ie. clones, targeting the real mesmer and all that.
(i think part of that comes with mesmers just not beeing strong in any departement BUT target denial)

What people dont get is, that mesmers without target denial are pretty much free kills. Really, to the point where you might as well just delete the class.

At any rate, play the mesmer in spvp for an hour or so, you will easily be able to figure out who is who afterwards. You will still lose target every so often, but you will reaquire it just as soon.

Offtopic: my ideal mesmer rework would be to get outsourced damage back to weapon skills, like phantasms. Just make it a burst damage skill with that weapon (or whatever). Get back that arcane duelist feeling. Tone down clones and shatters as needed (like shatters needed more of a friggen nerf).

Leuca.5732:

Darnis.4056:

So we can’t beat you… and therefore …..it’s imbalanced? .. One Earthshaker clears the map of all illusions lol…

Inserting words I never used is dishonest.

He didnt. He said that “a 3 people mesmer group wont hold up against any well organized spvp group”. We as in us. We (the mesmers) wont be able to beat you (the group that doesnt have a crapload of useless classes) so its imbalanced?
All it takes is some heavy damage aoe and the screen is uncluttered.
(just to clear that up, you two are clearly not understanding each other)

The changes were:
Mantra of stability -> effect is a character centered AoE
The cleansing Mantra thing -> same as the above
Scepter 2/3 skills got their base cooldowns reduced. I dont exactly remember how much, but i think it was both under 10 seconds. (untraited)

They didnt talk about any nerfs, but general changes affecting us (and i think the only change really affecting me) is that stunbreakers “break” you out mid animation. Which is rather nice.

All in all, rather lacking, if you ask me.

edit, ah, too slow and the guy above did it much better than me sadface

aaron.7850:

I have to disagree.

Its fun, but certainly not fine. A single cry of frustration can bring any distracted enemy down in a second. Confusion should punish people for not paying attention, but certainly not bring their health bars to 0%

Isnt that exactly the point, not paying attention? A confusion mesmer has no other way to apply pressure. As soon as you are aware of that, it takes but a single thing to get on top of him. Beeing aware.

And against usual condition setups you have to press like 6-8 skills to get you down, thats kinda long to blank out.

Tho, in general i think that in wvw confusion might be a tad too strong.

Sylvari, cause they glow in the dark!

edit: every single racial they have is utter rubbish tho.

Mephisto Loire.8207:

So we are basicaly back at the Focus Must-Have. I’d ran a 20/20/0/0/30 Build if I remember correctly. But I only managed a 6k DMG attack with an all-hit-shattering & blurred Frenzy (so two mainskills on CD). I cannot like that completely, because in comparison to what my thief does easily outshine this with his autoattacks (1k, 2.5k, 2.5k hits really are not rare – and everybody who has played thief before know how fast they hit their autoattack with daggers) wile the thief is much more survivable than the mesmer in meleecombat. I do not even want to start compare to a GS Warrior…
So basicaly for playing a Mesmer acceptable in PVE you have to go through a lot of hardship (much harder playstyle than thief/Warrior due lower health/defense) while not completing reaching the output of other melees.

And in question with Utilities…. yeah, Mantras are awesome….not. Veil….Blink…Mimic…the phantasm (which die ridiculously fast as every Boss throws around AEs like stupid)… nope, I don’t like them, to be honest. Other classes have more viable Utilities for PVE.

The thing I cannot approve the most are people who run their Mesmer with a Support Build. They really think they are an aid to a party? The content in where a supporter is needed has to be invented first. Right now, one can accomplish every dungeon with 5 berserkers. If you switch only 1 berserker with a supportmesmer, the needed time to finish a dungeon goes up. So right now supporters are nothing more than a hindrance for their party. – that’s why currently a PvE Support Mesmer is no smart choice either.

Gues I’m just fed up with Mesmer. He had a great introduction, but ingame he never reached the potention the developpers promised. And they just keeped on nerfing the class because he is unbalanceable in PVP – but with all the nerfing his PVE potential got more and more downstairs.

First of all, complaining your mesmer is weak when you are undergeared (which you obviously are, to come to the conclusions you are at) is noones fault but yours. You should be at some 10k damage with shatter and BF alone (and thats with my 0/20/20/0/30 setup in “tanky” gear). You do that every 10 seconds. You also get some 6-10k from the two phantasms. Thats not warrior level dps, but its not nearly as terrible as you say it is.

Utility. We have craploads. Our aoe cleanse does not only cleanse conditions, it also purges buffs. Our reflects trivialize many dungeons. Sword one purges buffs. Signet of inspiration doubles might stacks and doubles buff durations on everyone else (with group buffs). Veil and mass invisibility makes skipping a breeze. If you keep your utilities the same wherever you go and dont adapt, its again, your own fault.

And while support mesmers might run subpar in some groups. Its the only class that can give everyone every boon in the game. That this isnt needed or welcomed in the current meta, is hardly the classes fault, but a game design issue.

Also, we did not get nerfed. Every quickness in the entire game was reduced to the same. Timewar kitten till the longest quickness source and has zero downsides. Your tears are not justified.

Sword/Focus in pve. The sword has the nice overall damage, and 2 serves as another dodge so you can stay in melee range (also crits for like 6k). The focus has a nice aoe phantasm (that dies an awful lot tho) and temporal curtain is one of the best skills to stack mobs.

GS is more of a fallback weapon when you need to do ranged damage, need to kite or whatever.
The usual 20/20/0/0/30 setup also comes with 25 stacks of vulnerability, instantly, with shatter 3. Time warp still boosts killing speed by a lot. All in all, saying mesmer is weak in pve isnt true. We also have a crapload of utility independent of our spec, just because of utility skills.

mattenator.4328:

I just plugged the gear/build I was thinking about into the website; question is really if it’s too “all over the place”

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.0|c.1h.0.c.1h.0|6.1b.0|1b.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a.1h.71a|211.0.211.0.311.0.211.0.311.0.2w.0|0.k4a.k4a.0.u56b|39.d|33.34.3d.3b.0|e

For a hybrid this is heavily lopsided on condition damage. Might as well go full condition.

You sacrifice 1k atk compared to a heavy shatter build, 1.2-1.3 with ascended gear, which comes down to a loss of 1/3rd+ the damage on direct attacks, this means that every point in crit damage and crit chance is 1/3rd as effective as well.

I’d try to mix and match specialized gear instead. Just to try it out for instance, you could get cavalier trinkets with rabid jewels or something. (if you have the karma to spare, balthazar temple merchant) And if you like it, mix and match ascended gear to get the stats you want. I’d also put way more priority on toughness than vitality. Vitality is important for condition damage mitigation but since the mesmer has multiple ways to evade hits, its more important to reduce the hits that do get through to a minimum.

Suzut.4905:

@Cataca
I think your comparison is fundamentally flawed. In a Phantasm build, your stats only matter in that they transfer to the Phantasm. Unlike in a shatter build, it is the Phantasm, not the player, that does the damage.

Phantasms have Fury and many more trait steroids (two 15% damage and 20% haste) than you get in a shatter build (20% damage). The effective drop in damage is not so severe as 30%. I will show you the numbers to prove this.

For reference, I will be using the “Heavy Shattercat” build, which I will post for the OP’s benefit:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/mesmer/?4.1|6.1g.h1h|c.1g.h17.a.1n.h1|1g.71a.1g.71a.1n.71a.1g.71a.1p.71a.1g.71a|1i.67.1i.67.1i.67.1g.67.1g.67.1i.67|a1.u49a.0.0.u36b|0.0|31.3d.35.3a.3q|e

As you can see, the Power difference is 90%, not 80%, and you sacrifice 3000 eHP for the Shatter build. Maybe you are thinking about Ascendent-geared builds?

Anyway, here is the calculation for the critical damage coefficient:

Shattercat: 1 + (1.2)(.5 + .96)(.4086) = 1.7158672
Phantasm: 1 + [1.2][1+.15+.15][(.5 + .51)(.62)] = 1.976872

I will concede that this is a naive comparison. A Shatter build definitely deals a lot more upfront damage, and it has different base values based on the number of illusions (and if you have Illusionary Persona). Furthermore, phantasms have different attack speeds and are affected by haste differently. It also doesn’t take into account the problems in setting up or maintaining the illusions (like a pseudo-pet class). But the numbers seem heavily stacked in their favor, especially since phantasms shoot faster than shatters cool down.

In conclusion, I think it’s clear that Shatter definitely is more flexible in WvW and PvP, where burst damage dominates. But in PvE, where you’re just wailing on a boss and trying not to get killed by <BIG FIREBALL>, I really think Phantasms are the way to go. Seeing a Warlock crit on a fully-conditioned boss makes you blink a couple of times. Plus, you can always swap out Mender’s Purity for Restorative Mantras and heal your entire team for 2-3k every few seconds.

@mattenator
In my experience, Bleeding and Poison are where the damage is at. If you want to do confusion, you might want to pursue a pure Condition build rather than the hybrid I posted above.

@grimmson
A combination of Rampager and Cavalier works fine for me. =\

As said, im not bashing your build. The main point was, that most of our condition damage comes from confusion, the easiest way to apply it is shatters and scepter 2 (or 3, never use the thing). I purely compared shatter damage as its rather easy to do.

Even then, as said, the answer isn’t clear cut. I will say however, that if you are not using confusion as your main means to get that condition damage going, however you do that, you are basically wasting stat points. (i duelist and ethereal fields for instance)

And again, not bashing your build in any way. I can see how it’d work and that its probably effective.

edit: however, i dont agree on the pve aspect. Condition damage there is definitely a waste. Going full phantasm damage with zerker gear will net you more mileage for your stats.

imho, i’d buy condition damage food first and see how i’d like the damage.

but i guess im a bit late for that

Dracatis.1908:

Mantra charge x 3(for me), Heal spell, and near constant regeneration(for me). Toughness makes non-condition damage that much less making ever bit of healing that much more, and I personally have a couple ways of getting rid of annoying conditions. Though I play a wierd mesmer so what works for me, may not work for you.

Ah, regeneration. Thats quite fine, it scales nicely with healing power, i just thought it woulda been a waste of a stat otherwise. Nevermind, i just remembered that the mantra heal traitline also give regen on phantasms >_>

Dracatis.1908:

Personally I would use Cleric not Berserker with the healing Mantra trait in Inspirations. You can still get some of your crit and extra damage along with safe times to recharge if you do a bit of thinking and research. It’s worked quite well for me personally, I win most 1 v 1 fights, even against d/d/ eles. A random guardian gave me a good run the other day though… but we got interrupted so who knows who would have won.

Just interested why you’d put a priority into healing power, as far as i can see, 1k healing power will give you some 200 more health on mantra charge (ie. 2800 instead of 2600) which doesnt seem all that significant. Wouldnt knights or something give you more dps with hardly any survivability lost?