Guild Wars 2

It has now been over a month since the last time a developer communicated to us about this issue. I have contacted support only to be completely shut down. As far as the support team are concerned, this issue has got nothing to do with them and we should not be asking them about it. Thus, our only channel of communication is this thread in which no one is replying.

Further gifts will not be distributed. Submitting CS tickets on this matter will all yield the same negative reply, as the CS team did not select the users involved.

Let’s review what we have learned from this fiasco:

1) When ArenaNet says they will send you something, every eligible member of the community should flood support immediately with requests. It is the only way to ensure you will actually receive the item. More fool you if you are stupid enough to be respectful and patient.

2) When ArenaNet explicitly request that you hold off on submitting a support ticket, completely disregard and ignore this information. In fact, you should do the exact opposite. This advice is merely an attempt to reduce workload for staff at the expense of inexperienced customers.

3) It is completely unacceptable to bad mouth ArenaNet in any way, shape, or form, especially if you dare to suggest they are lying. It is, however, standard practice for customers to be patronised, treated as being too stupid to understand what successful raid boss kills look like, and be accused of lying.

4) When ArenaNet promises that there will be no sweeping under the rug going on, this means the issue is too complex to be worth staff time. They will half-hearted tinker around for another week, then you should assume that ArenaNet have given up and moved on to other things. But do not accuse them of lying – that is not allowed.

5) When ArenaNet wants the issue to die, they will simply shut down all channels of the communication. The support team will receive instructions to not process any more requests, and staff will stop responding on the forums. The customer is left helpless and unable to do anything but complain to the wall with their frustration. Next time, make sure you follow #1 to not end up here.

This isn’t about the raid bug or the box. This is about the appalling customer service that we have been subjected to ever since this offer was put on the table. Absolutely nothing about the way this matter has been handled has been done anything close to correctly. I completely agree with Baseraver above; if you simply cannot follow through with what you started, say so. There is really no greater level of disrespect than ignoring the issue until people get bored of bringing it up.

You don’t need any illusions or quickness to do it. Simply activate F5 just as the channel ends. It’s instant, so it doesn’t interrupt you, and this way the skill finishes casting while you’re still in your F5.

This is also the only way I seem able to get a double Time Warp with 0 illusions (by using F5 as I’m channelling TW).

I’d like to share some ideas myself and a group of fractal addicted friends brainstormed. We went over the most common things everyone has already mentioned (rewards, dredge) etc, and we fully agree that these should be top priority. We think the instability mechanic has a lot of potential to really make groups think about their team composition and shake up strategy in fractal runs. Based on this concept, we realised that we don’t necessarily want new fractals (although we certainly wouldn’t say no!), we’d really like new ways of completing fractals. There are 2 suggestions rolled into one here (so apologies for the long proposed functionality section) which both centre around the addition of a new fractal mode entirely.

Proposal Overview
New ways of completing fractals: 1) Marathon Mode 2) Time Trial Mode

Goal of Proposal
Increase re-playability of fractals by introducing new ways to beat them. Additionally, these modes could made leaderboards actually relevant and introduce competition to fractals.

Proposal Functionality
1) Marathon Mode. As the name suggests, Marathon Mode (MM) is a test of stamina. In MM, your team starts at fractal level 30 and each time you complete a fractal you move up one level. The goal is simply to see how far you can get before a party wipe or you decide to call it quits. Your reward scales according to how far you got. Sounds easy, right? Well, the catch is tPvP rules apply here. That means no character swapping, no gear switching, no trait / skill swapping and no consumables. Everything is locked in place from the moment you leave the observatory – and you’re stuck with it till the end of the run, so you better have prepared for all the instabilities and all of the fractals!

We think MM’s potential is fully unleashed when interesting instabilities are brought into play, forcing players to carefully analyse their team composition before they begin and ensure they are fully equipped to deal with every situation, which is something GW2 currently doesn’t do anywhere else in PvE as we’re freely allowed to swap out our skills, traits and weapons to perfectly counter every single fight before we engage. If you remove this and add interesting instabilities, you’re left with some very challenging content that really will test teamwork.

2) Time Trial Mode, or Mistlock Collapse Mode (MC). The concept here involves the fractals collapsing in on each other and becoming mashed up into one long pre-determined chain. You have 60 minutes to try and stabalise as much as you can before Dessa is forced to initiate evacuation protocol and get you out. Imagine if you had to fight the Anomaly, then a bridge spawned which took you over to the arm seals of Cliffside. When you’re done, instead of finding a walkway up to the top, you’re greeted with Uncategorised’s harpy climb to Old Tom. After he’s dispatched, you take a dive off the edge into the light-swim of Aquatic Ruins, which leads you to the Mossman’s house. Upon his demise, a path opens into the forest which takes you through Snowblind’s forest section connecting through to Urban Battleground’s Dulfy who is protecting the door to Mai Trin. Reaching the end of these courses in the time limit would be very difficult, and give fractal addicts some new content to theorise over and continuously improve at, being rewarded for their progress each time.

The idea was originally inspired by making fractal leaderboards actually mean something, and we feel reviving GW1-style challenge missions would be an excellent way to introduce competition to fractals. The Mistlock Observatory can have an interact-able console which displays the current MC leaderboard, ranking groups based on (if they completed it) how long it took or how far they got before they timed out. In the ideal world where developer resources are infinite, the MC chain would be changed every month, and the final leaderboard archived.

Associated Risks
Each mode carries its own key risk. MM causes a conflict with something I very vaguely remember Anet saying they didn’t want in GW2 many months before launch: content that requires you to play for several hours consecutively (someone should tell that to the dredge). Additionally, if the rewards for performing well are not substantially greater than the rewards for completing normal fractals, no one is ever going to do MM. On the flip side, if the reward is too good, there will be outcry that people are expected to grind fractal levels and agony resistance, then play for several hours consecutively to reap the game’s best rewards. Perhaps we’re biased in saying this, but we feel rewarding players who demonstrate they can do more than stack and press 2 is worth the rage from those who aren’t willing to put in the hard work to get there.

MC, on the other hand, reinforces the DPS zerker meta. After all, the whole mode is based around testing how quickly you can beat the content presented.

Our entire guild is currently unable to log into GW because the guild’s message of the day is too long. We all received a critical error when the message was posted and get the same error at login screen.

—> Crash <— Assertion: xappDataKey->ValueLen() < APP_DATA_ENTRY_VALUE_MAX_LENGTH File: ……\Game\Guild\GldPack.cpp(680) App: Gw2.exe

While this was brilliantly hilarious for the first half an hour, we kinda would like to play the game now :p

Temporal Curtain is a light field which can be comboed with iLeap for 15s of retaliation. The light field also persists even after Into the Void is used which allows further follow up combos which Phase Retreat after you’ve done your burst.

Like all displacement skills, there is the risk associated with screwing over your allies, but unless you are really bad at using this skill, the times your pull sets up a nuke will make it more than justifiable. It’s also important to remember conquest is about territorial control thus making displacement skills far more useful than they are in other areas of the game.

The iWarden’s main use is to summon it during Into the Void. This whole combo took a bit of a blow when the cooldown nerf was imposed, but it still works relatively well. Followed up with iLeap, iWarden does far more damage than iDuelist – and it’s AoE – but it’s also much harder to pull off (excuse the pun).

Basically, out of our 4 offhands, many people consider pistol and focus to be the only good ones (whether they are is another debate entirely), and when people learnt how to use the focus effectively they discovered it can do everything the pistol can and then some. Just take a look down the list of functionalities; single target damage, projectiles and a bouncing stun/daze/blind is trying to challenge swiftness, cripple, light field, AoE pull, AoE damage, projectile block and whirl finisher. The TC → ItV cooldown change equalised the playing field a little as it made the much faster stun off the pistol actually mean something, but the focus is still arguably our best offhand for… well… everything.

Pyroatheist.9031:

You have no idea what you’re talking about. With this combo, you will get 3 seconds of retaliation per blocked hit up to the cap of 30ish seconds.

I’m afraid it is you who does not know what you are talking about.

As of the February patch Retaliation only stacks 5 times. There is no “30ish second” cap; it is a 5 stack cap.

Reduced the number of maximum of stacks of Retaliation allowed to five (was 25). Duration still stacks.

Thus, the maximum length of retaliation from Mimic is 15seconds, before boon duration. This can only be extended if one of your stacks runs out and thus frees up space for a new stack.

Still not satisfied? I present you to the screenshots from the testing I did 5minutes ago. Here I absorb Winds of Chaos with Mimic and proceed to block the enemy’s Arc Lightning for the next 4 seconds. You will notice in this collection of screenshots there are approximately 7 unique “blocks” yet my retaliation stack never goes beyond 13 – quite considerably shorter than the 21 it should be. You will also notice towards the end of the collection the additional blocks are not adding any retaliation at all; I’m already capped out and cannot add any more regardless of how many attacks I block.

http://imgur.com/a/ZfJF9

Retaliation can only be stacked up to 5 times, so the most you’re getting out this combo is 15seconds before boon duration. You get 5s of retaliation from one light + leap combo, and you only need 3 to beat Mimic + Retaliatory Shield which leaves 2 slots open for more retaliation. Even better, a simple combo from sword+focus (Temporal Curtain → Illusionary Leap → Swap) already gives you those 3 stacks.

So while Mimic + RS may have effective synergy, let’s not get carried away here :p

Distortion on illusions would certainly make WvW interesting!

Now with regards to Imbued Diversion, I’d much rather see it merged rather than deleted all together. Deleting would mean Diversion is the only shatter without a trait buff and it does has good synergy with Domination orientated traits. It’s tricky to see where it would fit… I guess one option is to do the kind of consolidation we see in ele and guardian. Merge together Confusing Cry and Masterful Reflection, then Precise Wrack with Imbued Diversion. Thing is people already run most of these traits quite happily as they are…

I would contest the “new” IP would be useless, but this is a thread about your ideas If you want something that makes shatter hit more reliably, the best suggestion so far, IMO, is +move-speed when being shattered. You could tweak this a lot depending on the balance of the trait. For example, you could have protection, swiftness and stability granted to illusions when you command them to shatter.

Embolism.8106:

Do you want more powerful Shatters, or do you want more reliable Shatters?

Then why don’t we, dare I say it, nerf IP by splitting its functionality?

Imbued Shatter – exact same effect as IP, but only activates if you have an illusion active. In other words, this trait gives you a free clone.

Illusionary Persona – exact same effect as IP, but only activates if you don’t have an illusion active. In other words, this trait gives you a free shatter.

I really like a lot of these suggestions, however I too oppose the Flash Revelation idea.

Shatter skills are some of the best designed skills in the game from a PvP perspective because of the way the salience of the cue scales with the impact of the skill. When one clone is charging towards you, it’s easy to mistake it for an illusion trying to get in range for an auto attack. When 3 illusions are converging on your location you may as well play a siren – it is time to dodge. Failure to respond to this cue severely punishes you when we’re talking Mind Wrack.

If I understand your idea correctly, Flash Revelation just deletes all that. It would be insanely overpowered without a severe nerf to Mind Wrack’s damage.

Now moving onto the topic of Imbued Diversion, I’d like to point out this trait isn’t totally trash. Now before you switch off, I’m not saying I don’t want it changed (compared to IP it’s just trash), but it does have it’s niche. When combined with Dazzling and Rending Shatter, ID allows large stacks of AoE vulnerability to be churned out whilst dazing everybody which can be devastating in AoE teams.

The problem, IMO, is ID is a team fight orientated trait… where illusions are notoriously fragile. Diversion’s daze doesn’t stack, so you’re investing 30 points for a 1 second AoE daze… Well I think we can all agree that was totally worth the investment.

I would add a clause to ID which simply allows Diversion’s daze to stack (well I say simply, I don’t know how much of a programming issue that would cause). What does this achieve? First, ID becomes useful in 1v1s and is actually a somewhat attractive alternative to IP. You trade instant shatters for up to 3 whole seconds of CC if the foe does not react to that 3 illusion convergence siren screaming “DODGE!!” Second, it makes shattering more than one illusion with Diversion no longer feel like a waste. Third, it makes ID insanely powerful in team fights. Too powerful? I would argue no. Illusions are fragile and die quickly in big fights. If you can successfully pull off a 3 illusion shatter I think you deserve to get a lengthy AoE daze on a 34s cooldown with the investment of a grandmaster trait in a line which offers nothing to help illusions survive. Also, the whole duration can be removed with a single stun break.

Edit: Obviously this would be quite OP in combination with some of your other changes :p

Divinity.8041:

I have tried all the above builds out, just wondering if I heard some thoughts of some veteran spvp mesmer out there, and share their experiences on what build shines for them!

Thanks guys <3

Well I assume you’ve noticed a common theme in this thread is builds taking 30 in illusions. These builds will always work great because Illusionary Persona is so strong, and should really have an internal cooldown.

I was looking for some variety and wanted to do away with that. I decided to try and make a build which revived the GW1 mesmer and properly shut down the opponent. It ended up being a build somewhat based around interrupts using 30/20/20/0/0 with Mantra of Distraction, Blink and Arcane Thievery. I’m by no means saying it is more effective than shatter based builds, but we’re talking hot join here and I can assure you it works fine. If you’re looking for variety I strongly recommend you give it a try.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-NFRg;1VPk3197ZVV71;9;4TJJ;026B13-27;5IRk6;2sV2DsV2D5RH
(You may need to copy paste the link)

You have so much CC that nobody will ever be able to use their heal skill around you. You really do not need to have an insane Mind Wrack burst when you can prevent the foe from healing. Chaotic Interruption will either increase the cooldown of the skill you interrupted with chill, give you a buy one get one free with blind or make you cry when you roll cripple… but a snare is still a snare…. right?

Confounding Suggestions turns one of your Mantra of Distraction uses into an instant stun, and makes a 2 clone Diversion stun (of course this is all statistically speaking). I don’t run Harmonious Mantras because (in hot join) I found I simply didn’t need the 3rd charge and all it meant was I was running to the next fight with only one charge when I really should have been re-channelling. The decision is one of personal preference based on your play style.

It’s still very much a work in progress build. Furious Interruption and Bountiful Interruption are both good alternatives, and Rending Shatter takes the vulnerability stacking to the extreme.

I’d really like to hear the opinions of someone who isn’t biased by the fact they made the build ^^

Richard Nixon.6573:

Mesmers are generally better suited for toughness anyway, since we have light armor but a (relatively) high hp pool. The higher hp makes you more resistant to conditions, but toughness makes you more resistant to pure damage. So, imo, it would be better to stack up the toughness than to stack up the vitality.

So if you’re going for a condition-based build, rabid is definitely better. Burst is harder to react to, and toughness will help manage that.

I disagree. As a mesmer you have so many ways to negate direct damage through teleports, snares, stealth, a multitude of CC including a daze just for being a mesmer and if all else fails you can make yourself invulnerable (again just for being a mesmer). Managing conditions, however, is much harder for us to do without speccing into it. This is probably exactly why we have light armour but medium health, and I personally think it is best to keep pumping up that health because toughness is completely irrelevant when you’re negating the damage through skills.

@OP you’re taking staff, so you have the pseudo-stun break Phase Retreat with you anyway. You have Chaos Armour which further shuts down your attacker and you can take a skill like Signet of Domination or Mantra of Distraction for yet more defence to burst. You have 20 in your toughness trait line giving regeneration and, more importantly, protection in addition to some nice defensive traits. I’m assuming you’re running Chaotic Dampening from T2 which gives you both the aforementioned skills more often, and Phase Retreat even more often from Illusionist’s Celerity. Illusionary Defence or Master of Manipulation (with Blink) are both excellent defensive traits which increases resistance to direct damage even further. I assume you’re bringing Illusionary Persona, so you can insta daze and invulnerable on demand. This is all stacking up to be a LOT of resistance to direct damage, but where’s your condition management? It is all crammed into one utility skill.

IMO in most cases for mesmer vitality > toughness, and this is certainly one of them.

Rezz.8019:

I can’t remember anyone complaining about assassins in GW1, even tho they would push 3 buttons and enemies would die.

You’ve made this comment a few times lately, and each time I have resisted the temptation to eat you alive. Well, I’ve decided I’m gonna bite.

No one complained about assassins in GW1 because they sucked. A new player with 0 experience of the assassin or even their own class could accidentally and unintentionally counter them without even realising it. The combo system was severely flawed. A single block, a single miss, all it took was for one skill to fail to land the assassin was shut down until the whole combo came off cooldown. The system made the assassin incredibly predictable, making them vulnerable to interrupts and +CDR skills which could go on to shut them down for up to a whole minute. Assassins were just laughably easy to counter.

Of the 8 skills you were allowed to take, an assassin had to find a res, 3 combo skills, you usually needed a 5 stage combo in order to get any good damage and to keep the foe locked down, backup lead skills incase you are shut down, increased movement speed / gap closer, attack speed steroid and survivability. It was an impossible feat and even if you did succeed by some miracle, you still didn’t bring anywhere near the same utility a warrior did.

It’s also important to note GW1 had monks. Do you think people would complain about thieves in GW2 if we had a monk stood behind us healing us for half of our health in a quarter of a second while the thief tries to burst us?

The thief and assassin can not be compared on any level, so please stop regurgitating this statement.

On topic: I haven’t had much trouble with HS specifically since its nerf ages ago. I somewhat agree with Recently with regards to the initiative system being the root of many problems, but I’d like to point out the initiative system transfers the opportunity cost from “If I use this now I won’t be able to use this later” to a cost which affects the entire weapon bar. Theoretically, thieves have to make decisions about how to utilise their damage: all in one go leaving nothing left for defences (eg Cloak and Dagger) or spread out in sustained damage? If they want to relentlessly spam the optimal skill until they run out of initiative fine, but they shouldn’t expect to be able to CC the counter burst. Sadly this doesn’t come across very well in game.

Now let’s turn our attention to traits.

Harmonious Mantras is fine, if not little overpowered.

Empowering Mantras is fine.

Protected Mantras is fine. If you find yourself playing a build intended to survive long fights, grabbing bonus armour while recharging your mantras with minimal investment into the tree (and you’ll get vigor on crits!) is a wise and perfectly viable investment.

Restorative Mantras… now we’re getting into iffy territory. Here’s my problem: if RM is designed with the same thinking as PM, that is you get a little help when you have to recharge a mnatra in combat, then why is it so deep into the trait tree, and a trait tree with no other mantra related traits no less? RM needs either to be moved to tier 1 or to stay in T2 but proc off the use of the Power X skill, with healing reduced to compensate. Unfortunately, Harmonious Mantras will, as always, cause all sorts of balance issues here, so I’m more in favour of bringing it down to tier 1. It is worth pointing out RM base heals for 2.6k with 0.2HealingPower scaling (according to Wiki), and you need atleast 200 compassion to pick it up currently which makes it heal for 2640 – 20 points higher than the Wiki tooltip value for Power Return. It is a really good heal, but the trait seems too inaccessible for someone who just wants a little extra help with their mantras in combat. On the other hand, the current RM + MoPain spam build is borderline a hard healer in the team, and we don’t want that to become even more easily accessed… An easy fix is to nerf MoPain cooldown once we actually add a secondary functionality.

Mantra Mastery now and this one is hard to judge. I feel if you blow both mantra charges the cooldown is the least of your worries – charging it again is more important. I said several times in previous mantra threads a grandmaster trait should be added that allows them to passively recharge. Now that their cast time has been reduced, I don’t really see the harm in adding it to a tier 2 trait, so why not add a secondary functionality to Mantra Mastery which allows them to passively charge themselves whilst in combat?

Finally, a big problem for mantras right now is transitivity. If you finish a fight with 1 charge of a mantra left, you have to blow it, wait out the cooldown and recharge all before your next fight. That’s stupid. There are a variety of very simple fixes that can be done eg. for every 10 seconds you are out of combat all currently charged mantras have one charge replenished. I really don’t see people dropping out of combat for 10 whole seconds just to get their mantra charge back when they can recast it in 3 seconds, so I don’t really see any reason why this shouldn’t be added in the very next patch to be honest.

TL;DR: MoPain and MoRecovery need buffing. It would probably be easier to balance if MoR was just replaced with a signet heal, whilst also making traits such as Blurred Inscriptions so much more attractive. Mantra Mastery could benefit from a secondary effect. Restorative Mantras needs moving to tier 1 or to proc off the Power X skill. Finally, when out of combat, any currently charged mantra should replenish charges. Aside from these flaws mantras are extraordinarily good and severely underrated skills.

Long double post coming up, tl;dr at bottom

Mantras are fine the way they are, well almost perfect actually. They are some of the best skills in the game which are severely underrated because of their charging times, but they are well worth it. You can charge them out of combat and even if you do blow both charges and have to recharge in combat, the recent buff to their cast time is brilliant. If eles can find the time to stand completely still and channel Meteor Shower or Churning Earth whilst having lower base HP than us, no Distortion and no stealth, I think we have more than enough time to move around while recharging a mantra.

As for their active effects, wow. I don’t understand how people can say the payoff is lackluster. MoDistraction is an instantaneous interrupt (I’m fairly sure the only other instant interrupt in the game is Diversion with either a clone in melee range of your target or Illusionary Persona, but don’t quote me on that) with a 5 second recharge. MoResolve removes 2 conditions instantly on a 2 second cooldown. I cannot stress how important instant casting is here. The ability to strip off poison while channeling your heal skill for a 99.9% chance that you are clean when the heal comes through is a life saver. Immobilise is an incredibly strong condition – some would even argue it is as good as a stun and therefore needs to be removed as quickly as you can remove stuns. Power Cleanse can do exactly that. Let’s not forget MoR removes 4 conditions over the course of 2 seconds making it our best condition removal in terms of quantity per second. MoConcentration is a stun breaker on a 2 second cooldown. If I went to the necro forums and said “Hey guys, how would you like a stun breaker on a two second cooldown?” they would drool so much they could dribble up a river between them. I do feel the stability should be buffed to 3 seconds, making it long enough to use Finish Him, with the cooldown also bumped to 3.

There are, however, 2 mantras which I find lacking. First, MoPain, otherwise known as the utility skill which doesn’t bring utility. It needs a secondary effect so that the skill doesn’t just deal damage. Make it apply vulnerability, give you might, something, anything, just make it do more than “press me to deal damage”. Second, MoRecovery is so hard to balance with the existence of Harmonious Mantras that I would just delete it and replace it with a signet heal. A signet heal would actually make traits such as Blurred Inscriptions really attractive (which is currently made redundant for 3 of the 4 signets we have), though it needs to be carefully balanced with regards to Mender’s Purity and Cleansing Inscriptions.

PvP still needs to be accessible. A casual PvEr needs to be able to decide one day they’re feeling unusually confident and want to try PvP. The class they are familiar with and used to needs to be familiar to them when they enter PvP. It is bad enough that PvP already changes the way armour stats work and even completely removes some stat combos from the game. If 80% of their skills also function differently, you create a divide so big no one will ever dare to cross it. This is why WvW needs to use PvE skills, even if they are insanely overpowered versus players (eg confusion), and why PvE/PvP splits should be avoided at all costs.

I would say no more than 10% of skills being split is a good target to aim for. It sucks when a nerf intended entirely for PvP hits builds you used in other formats, but it’s something we all have to suck up or we may as well develop two completely different and standalone games.

I dislike this idea.

The mesmer is designed around the permanent concept of lose-lose, much like its GW1 predecessor. In the case of phantasm builds, shatters are the lose condition for trying to kill the phantasms. In other words, your options are:

A) Focus the mesmer, eating phantasm damage
B) Focus the phantasms, which are shattered and you eat a Mind Wrack

I get the feeling Anet never intended players to spec into extremes of pure phantasm or pure shatter, rather you should (read: they want you to) be actively making use of both. At first sight the traits seem to heavily promote one over the other as taking + phantasm damage appears to be in conflict with + Mind Wrack damage. However, on closer inspection you realise these traits actually promote the lose-lose playstyle. If you took both of these traits, the example above becomes

A) +15% damage per phantasm
B) +20% Mind Wrack damage

Suddenly these two traits don’t seem to conflict with each other at all; rather, they cover your build’s weakness and reinforce the lose-lose situation.

Adding passive effects to shatter skills would instead give the mesmer yet another drawback to deal with. They already have to balance the issue of giving up their clones, phantasms and any utilities coming from traits when they shatter. There are more than enough incentives for the mesmer NOT to shatter – they don’t need another. If you make shattering too counter productive, you create a class based around pets.

I think one of the issues with the shatter build (which is perhaps hidden beneath the absurd fluctuations in the MW spike caused by each of the 4 hits having a separate crit chance) is the way the build ignores what I believe to be Anet’s intentions and focuses on the extreme of just shattering. This removes all the drawbacks that are usually associated with shatters because, frankly, they are meaningless to the build. Even if we did go with OP’s suggestion, none of the proposed functionalities have any meaning to the shatter build so it frankly won’t care about losing them by hitting that shatter key.

Taldren.7523:

Anything a Mantra can do, another utility can do better.

Please elaborate on why you think this is so. Allow me to copy paste a post I made in a mantra thread recently.

I’d like to know exactly why we think mantras are so bad?

Mantra of Distraction is one of the only skills in the game that is an instant activating interrupt, and you get a second shot just 5 seconds later.

Mantra of Resolve removes 4 conditions untraited, which gives it 4 times the power of Smite Condition. Look down the list of condition removals and you’ll quickly see many of them are loaded with secondary effects and high cooldowns. MoR drops the secondary effect in exchange for instant cast and the removal of more conditions. Comparisons to Null Field are thrown around without apparently realising it only strips one condition per second allowing it to strip 5 in total on a 45s CD, and Arcane Thievery is capped at 3.

Mantra of Concentration is two stun breakers in one skill, and it has a 2 second cooldown. Two stun breakers, one utility skill, two second cooldown. And if that isn’t enough, you’re actually immune to new CCs for that 2second cooldown anyway. It’s just somewhat overshadowed by our other stun breakers such as Decoy. The only change I’d make is buffing the stability to 3 seconds so that, you know, it’s actually long enough to do something as simple as Finish Him…

Mantra of Pain and Mantra of Recovery are the only ones which really need a functionality adjustment. The former doesn’t actually bring any utility despite being labelled a utility skill, and the latter needs a significant buff to its heal or a secondary effect. The problem with buffing the heal is the issue caused by Harmonious Mantras.

The only reason mantras are so unpopular is because their recharge time is effectively directly proportionate to the length of fight, and thus their power diminishes for each second you spend in combat. Outside of running a glass cannon “Kill or be killed” build, mantras become problematic. By giving them a secondary method of recharging which does not involve a 4 second channel, their usage would fly through the roof because they actually ARE good skills. They certainly do not need a complete redesign which involves scrapping their concept all together.

I fail to see how “anything a mantra can do another skill can do better”. Taking aside their clunky charging mechanics, Power Cleanse is arguably our best condition removal, Power Lock is our best interrupt the best interrupt in the game whilst Power Break is our shortest cooling down stun break and only source of stability. Mantras are good skills. They just need a secondary method of recharging so that they do not become increasingly useless as the fight goes on. This could even be in the form of a trait. In the previous thread I suggested such a trait were a major T3 Chaos trait, allowing it to give this somewhat mediocre line a new niche and encouraging it to be picked up in builds designed to survive long drawn out fights, which is exactly where mantras currently falter.

bluewanders.5297:

edit: I forgot to say that I do agree they need a passive recharge option, possibly a trait that adds the ability to add charges for each mantra by fulfilling certain requirements, and prevent it from being OP by having it only add charges when the mantra is already prepared.

I really like this idea and could see some viable implementation of it.

Thinking about where to put the trait, as I said above mantras are already fine in do-or-die glass builds, so if you want passively recharging mantras it’s because you intend to have long fights.; I’d immediately narrow our choices down to Chaos and Inspiration. IMO the Chaos line is quite lacking at the moment. My suggestion would thus be to replace Prismatic Understanding (T3 major) with this new trait. The name, Prismatic Understanding, is actually quite fitting as we’re effectively always “meditating”. The functionality could be something like:

Each of your mantras has a 20% chance to gain one charge whenever you gain a new boon. A mantra can only gain a charge in this way once every 20 seconds.

• Each mantra has its own independent chance, so if you have two mantras one may proc and the other may not
• Each mantra has its own independent cooldown, so only the procced mantra becomes exempt for 20 seconds
• “New boon” does not include the reapplication of a boon you already had

Some other things to note off the top of my head:

You wouldn’t be able to get free charges out of Power Lock with Bountiful Interruption as BI is also a T3 Chaos trait.

There would be synergy in the minor traits of Chaos, but one of them is on a 30 second cooldown so I don’t see it being too problematic in terms of balance.

There is excellent synergy with the staff/trident, although the whole line really works well with the staff (indeed the staff CDR trait is found here). I’m not really able to judge whether it would be too good without seeing it in practice…

Critical Infusion (Duelling T1 Minor) is my biggest concern atm. Edit: MoC’s stability and synergy with Furious Interruption/MoD also causes issues. I would perhaps just limit the trait to being unable to proc if the Power X skill is currently recharging.

I’d like to know exactly why we think mantras are so bad?

Mantra of Distraction is one of the only skills in the game that is an instant activating interrupt, and you get a second shot just 5 seconds later.

Mantra of Resolve removes 4 conditions untraited, which gives it 4 times the power of Smite Condition. Look down the list of condition removals and you’ll quickly see many of them are loaded with secondary effects and high cooldowns. MoR drops the secondary effect in exchange for instant cast and the removal of more conditions. Comparisons to Null Field are thrown around without apparently realising it only strips one condition per second allowing it to strip 5 in total on a 45s CD, and Arcane Thievery is capped at 3.

Mantra of Concentration is two stun breakers in one skill, and it has a 2 second cooldown. Two stun breakers, one utility skill, two second cooldown. And if that isn’t enough, you’re actually immune to new CCs for that 2second cooldown anyway. It’s just somewhat overshadowed by our other stun breakers such as Decoy. The only change I’d make is buffing the stability to 3 seconds so that, you know, it’s actually long enough to do something as simple as Finish Him…

Mantra of Pain and Mantra of Recovery are the only ones which really need a functionality adjustment. The former doesn’t actually bring any utility despite being labelled a utility skill, and the latter needs a significant buff to its heal or a secondary effect. The problem with buffing the heal is the issue caused by Harmonious Mantras.

The only reason mantras are so unpopular is because their recharge time is effectively directly proportionate to the length of fight, and thus their power diminishes for each second you spend in combat. Outside of running a glass cannon “Kill or be killed” build, mantras become problematic. By giving them a secondary method of recharging which does not involve a 4 second channel, their usage would fly through the roof because they actually ARE good skills. They certainly do not need a complete redesign which involves scrapping their concept all together.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

It’s damage isn’t cut by 80%. It’s damage is 100% of what it is designed to be. You don’t like that design, but changing it would raise the damage past what is intended, and that would lead to unforeseen consequences.

As I said above, this isn’t a balance issue IMO. It is a fundamental flaw in the very concept behind the skill’s design. If Anet deem the removal of vulnerability overpowered, they can adjust the other numbers accordingly.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

Also, why on earth are you chasing down an opponent with 3% health with a staff? To quote my Mesmer, “You’re already dead, you just don’t know it.” If you burned them down with a staff they are so covered with conditions let them run. It won’t help.

You completely missed the point of the analogy

Sarelm.8317:

I’m sorry, I’m pretty sure mesmer’s can’t use shortbows….

Nuka wasn’t the person who brought up rangers, (s)he merely misquoted.

Sarelm.8317:

And don’t BS me with “GS and Sword” use it. Go make a sword “support” build. Tell me how much help that is too your group.

Slightly off topic here, but GS support is actually quite good. Staff 1 and 5 are your only real support skills, 4 at a stretch, whilst the GS supports with 2, 3, 4 and 5 and an appropriate sigil choice will give you a clean sweep of support skills. Anyway, this isn’t the thread for that discussion

Perhaps consistent is a poor choice of wording. What I’m trying to say is the staff’s damage is actually replaced by the vulnerability. None of your examples feature this.

The mesmer sword damage is the same for swing 1 and 2, and increases in swing 3. The primary effect is damage, damage, damage. This is merely supplemented with vulnerability and boon removal.

And the guardian’s greatsword is similar to the mesmer sword. Damage, damage, damage on each skill. The secondary effect from the final part of the chain is offensive support, but the final hit doesn’t deal any less damage for the privilege; it merely supplements the main effect.

The ranger shortbow 1 is the best of your examples because the figure I’m reading from a build tool shows marginally higher base damage than the mesmer staff. Here, the bleeding is arguably supposed to be the primary effect, but your branding of it as an RNG is very questionable. I don’t have much experience with this skill, so I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert and discuss it :p

Both ranger longbow and mesmer greatsword deal respectable damage at their lowest range., and both deal more than the mesmer staff’s base damage. The mesmer staff is supposed to be making up this deficit through its conditions.

Instead, when the mesmer staff applies vulnerability, the damage from the skill is actually reduced. The offensive support is not being applied as a supplementary secondary effect; it is actually replacing the damage. I used the word “consistent” because, I don’t know about you, but when I’m chasing a foe with 3% HP the last thing I want is a weapon which has its damage cut by 80% on a random factor that is completely out of my hands. In all of the examples you gave (except possibly shortbow), I can press 1 in confidence that I will be dealing a good punch regardless of the “quirks” of the skill. That is good implementation of the support effects.

For me it’s not about a balance issue, it’s about the simple fact your auto attack has its damage cut by ~80% on an RNG. That is bad design. It doesn’t matter whether the attack usually deals 15,000 damage. Your auto attack is supposed to be a consistent form of damage, not one which completely randomly decides it’s going to be a support tool today.

I have nothing wrong with the sword applying vulnerability because that is a secondary effect (the primary is damage). Similarly, the staff’s boons are a secondary effect (the primary should be damage). The problem, IMO, is that the vulnerability from Winds of Chaos is applied in place of the primary effect of the skill.

How about the vulnerability is only applied when the attack bounces? Then the first hit will always give you a consistent source of damage and, unless you’re bouncing it off yourself, the vulnerability would only be applied if another ally were present to make use of it.

I dislike it on the staff auto attack because the whole damage of the attack comes from the conditions, so 33% of the time you get 0 damage.

With regards to OP’s suggestions, confusion on auto attacks is OP, although the 33% factor may help to correct that, but then clones reverse it. Still, I want my auto attack to deal consistent damage. Confusion puts control of the damage in my opponents’ hands.

Poison is a very powerful condition – there’s a reason it’s on Chaos Storm. Off the top of my head only one auto attack in the entire game has it, Putrid Curse, which is 2 seconds and attack 3 of the chain. Again, the 33% balancing factor is reversed by clones.

Just remove the vulnerability and leave it. It technically buffs the skill outside of support builds anyway. The only question is where do you put it? I don’t really want to see it on Chaos Storm either, and it makes zero sense on Chaos Armor…. Make iWarlock apply it before its damage is calculated?

Don’t quote me on this, but I read somewhere Empowering Illusions doesn’t stack with Phantasmal Strength. You might wanna test that out in Heart of the Mists

Long post incoming If you cba (I don’t blame you :o) skip to the bold line.

Adding a new effect to the auto attack will not fix the scepter. It needs a conceptual redesign.

The main hand sword currently completely and totally outclasses the scepter in offence, defence, support and control. The sword can

Improve the damage of the whole team (vulnerability)
Remove boons
2 second invulnerability every 10s untraited
Large spike damage in 2s channel
Cripple
Gap close
Immobilise
Leap finisher

The scepter can
Summon clones, slowly
Block one attack
Blind, which blocks one attack
Confuse with moderate damage on a 3second channel
900 range

Let’s address each scepter point.

You don’t need a weapon designed around being a clone factory. Even with max guile and the shatters recharging at 50% hp trait, the common sPvP shatter builds have 3 illusions up waiting for a shatter to come off cooldown. If you want to play a shatter based build, you are not going to rely on the slow production of clones from the scepter auto attack when you can pop out 3 clones in 1 second flat from other sources.

The block/blind just isn’t even worth discussing. Blurred Frenzy is quite clearly infinitely times better than the scepter’s excuse for a defence ever will be. The only argument to be made is the blind can support allies, but it is far too slow to be used reliably.

Whilst the sword gets all that defensive power in the same skill as its offensive strength, the scepter’s offence is shafted into skill 3. This is a hilariously long channel with a giant purple beam and audio cue. Any competent human player with a shred of experience in dealing with this skill is not going to be taking any reasonable amount of damage from it. In PvE, mobs attack far too slow for the confusion to be useful.

As for the range, it is really irrelevant. 900 isn’t huge. The sword comes with gap closer and complete invulnerability while you dish out the pain. If I’m unable to get in range, I’m switching to one of my ranged 2 handers.

The scepter is completely outclassed in every way possible and the only people using it are those absolutely adamant that confusion based builds are viable in any game format. Even if we conclude they are, the glaringly obvious 3 second channel that basically screams “Don’t cast anything!” still leaves a question mark over the viability of the scepter when running them. When you make a skill have clear cues to its use, it’s because the skill is supposed to be deadly. For example, the Guild Wars 1 Backfire made the foe take damage roughly equivalent to 20% of their HP for daring to use a skill. It actually made the foe think twice about casting, and therefore the clear cues that you had BF on you were perfectly justifiable. If anything, they made Backfire stronger as the foe was often forced to stop casting until it was gone. Confusion deals far too little damage in GW2, most likely because it also affects auto attacking. In order for confusion to be remotely useful you are relying on the foe not noticing they have it stacked up on them, which isn’t going to happen with Confusing Images.

Anet need to realise they can buff the numbers of the scepter until the cows come home, but nothing short of a complete redesign (of either the scepter or confusion) is going to make this weapon competitively viable. Or, alternatively, the complete annihilation of the sword’s strength.

My own personal suggestion would be to make the scepter into a condition based support weapon. Let the auto attack apply a condition (not confusion), make 2 create a small area of reflection around the mesmer, similar to the guardian’s Protector’s Strike. If there is no incoming attack for the full duration, nearby allies gain a defensive boon, perhaps vigor. Make 3 a ground targetted AoE ethereal field (which allows confusion to be stacked significantly higher with team coordination). As for where to stick the clone summon… 2 maybe?

That is entirely off the top of my head in 5 minutes. I’m not saying it’s a balanced solution or even a good one, but it gives you a basic idea of the direction I think the scepter could take on its route to viability.

Just to clarify, I’m firmly in the scepters are useless camp, so it’s sword/sword for me

But that’s a whole other debate for one of the hundreds of other threads…

I’ve taken a liking to sword offhand over pistol offhand when I’m running GS as my second set.

The daze from 4 has synergy with some domination daze-orientated traits which you don’t get from the pistol, and coolsdown 10 seconds faster than Magic Bullet. With the prevalence of backstab builds at the moment, the ability to hit 4 and have full protection against this invisible attack for 2 seconds is a god send. Even when we consider a foe who is visible, Magic Bullet can be negated by stability; Illusionary Riposte can not. Finally, if you do block an attack the enemy will take 487 base damage according to the tooltip. May I remind you a 3 illusion Mind Wrack only states 492.

So let’s recap. That’s an ability that protects against a key skill which isn’t blocked by stability and works on stealth skills, recharges 10 seconds faster, deals a truck load of damage if successful and can be turned into a daze VS a stun into an unpredictable, and thus unreliable, daze and blind, only the unreliable latter can be used to protect against a stability-backed key skill, none can protect against a stealth skill and it recharges 10 seconds slower to boot.

Then we get onto iDuelist VS iSwordsman. The former may attack several times, which makes it far superior for combining with combo fields such as staff on switch (although it’s supposed to only be a combo finisher 20% of the time), but it has a clear audio cue when it fires. Furthermore, it only bleeds on attack when traited and even then only when it crits. The iSwordsman does not have any clear audio cue. It attacks fast – and I mean FAST. I have found it really hard to dodge an iSwordsman hit, and it hits harder than every other phantasm. When the attack is done, it then leaps back from the foe to a relatively middleish range, opening up an opportunity for a much more consistent spike from Mind Wrack.

The only thing I really dislike about OH sword is the weapon damage. It is more consistent than the pistol, but actually has a lower max value. That seems off to me considering the pistol does provide more utility, generally speaking.

Still, give it a try; I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised

I expected illusions to be the touchy point and was looking forward to the arguments people make (I’m still not 100% convinced I agree with myself yet), but I have to admit I’m very surprised people don’t agree with me on Mind Blast.

As a reward for downing a player, the player’s influence on a battle is significantly reduced. This is seen across every single downed bar… except the mesmer.

With the mesmer and their clone using Mind Blast, you can get up to 7-8 stacks of confusion permanently. If you have a little +condi duration and are underwater (where MB seems to activate slightly faster), double digits of confusion from a downed mesmer are not a rare sight.

My problem with Mind Blast is the fact the confusion gained from it is fully sustainable. Normally when you have a high confusion stack on you, you can just sit back and wait it out for a few seconds, or just cleanse it and know it won’t be back for a while. However, MB’s confusion can’t be waited out and the cleanse will save you all of 5 seconds. It can (quite easily IMO) be argued Mind Blast is our BEST source of confusion. Where is the reward for downing the mesmer when you give them access to one of their best skills?

If the mesmer downed bar were in the form of a weapon set, I would happily take it. It really is that good. 1 applies confusion, 2 stealths and creates a clone who also applies confusion, 3 creates a high damage phantasm. Heck, it’s probably better than the scepter.

As has been noted above, the player trying to finish us is unaffected by the confusion. Removing the confusion and buffing the raw damage would actually buff MB in many situations whilst removing its utterly broken ability to maintain such high stacks of confusion.

Before I begin, I’d like to politely ask anyone with their finger twitching over the reply button with a rant about how much they hate the downed mechanic as a whole to quietly leave.

The mesmer downed bar has a lot of questionable aspects at the moment. I’d like to discuss our downed skills in detail and suggest improvements.

Mind Blast. Sorry, but this is nothing short of overpowered. Mind Blast seems to be reminiscent of the pre-confusion rework. For those who didn’t play the betas, confusion used to be something you apply in low stacks for a sustained period of time. As such, our scepter and trident both had confusion on their auto attacks. Confusion was then reworked into something you apply in large stacks for a short duration. In doing so, Anet removed confusion from our auto attacks… but they left 2. First, the trident’s clones and second, the one which is relevant to this thread, the downed/drowning bar.

The combination of the mesmer and their clone spamming Mind Blast leads to a ridiculous downed state. I sometimes even intentionally down myself in PvE so I can abuse the masses of confusion.

There is really no other solution than to remove the confusion and buff the hard damage to compensate.

Deception. Deception is a really good skill to be honest. I think the fact the real mesmer has a giant red arrow above their head is perfectly fine. Deception breaks a stability charged finish, which is more than can be said for a lot of classes. It does need the silly bugs fixing where it will not break the finish though. I don’t mind Deception failing if I’m downed in a bad position; that’s a positional error on my part. But when I’m in an open area, or even only have a wall on me at one side, there is absolutely no excuse for Deception failing to interrupt the stomp. Finally, the mesmer/clone distinction needs to be made clearer for allies, some of whom have never played a mesmer.

Phantasmal Rogue. I actually don’t have any problems with this skill. It’s a bit meh in the sense it only deals damage whilst other classes have some original effects on their skill 3s, but it’s a pretty useful skill. It deals a chunk of damage to someone trying to finish you and if you’re lucky you’ll end up downing them instead. The only thing I would suggest is to move Mind Blast’s confusion onto the rogue. Perhaps make it deal double damage from behind or apply 3 stacks of confusion from the front.

Should illusions die when we are downed? In my opinion, yes. Currently mesmer will win any 1v1 downed fight with the combination of Mind Blast and any illusions they have alive sticking around to help out. It would make sense for the illusions to die; you could argue the mesmer’s power is disrupted upon entering downed causing their hallucinations to falter. I would then add a trait (perhaps replacing that wonderfully underpowered Prismatic Understanding /cough Meld with the Shadows /cough) which amends this and allows the mesmer to maintain their illusions on downing.

So what are your thoughts on the mesmer downed bar?

Kalico.9246:

Not sure why everyone is saying we have no stability skills; here is a list of utilities that break stun:

Blink, Mirror Images, Decoy, Signet of Midnight, Mantra of Concentration (which gives stability and breaks stun).

You can also used Phase Retreat to at least get away from enemies while waiting for skill recharge.

Stability and break stun are completely different. The former is a proactive play designed to prevent your key skill from being interrupted. The latter is an oh kitten button designed to get you out of a tricky situation.

Our only stability comes from Mantra of Concentration. Its power is significantly weaker than other stability skills because it can be instant cast and used while casting another skill. It is here where I begin to question whether Anet put any thought into the skill. As I said previously, stability is a proactive play. That means I want to use it BEFORE I use my key skill, not during. It gets better – Power Break is also weaker than other stability skills because it also breaks stun. Wait what? It’s now both proactive… and reactive… in the same skill? You’re probably quick to argue PB is designed to break stun and then provide protection against chain CCing, but Decoy breaks stun and turns you invisible, Mirror Images breaks stun and lets you use Distortion and Signet of Midnight breaks stun and blinds the next CC. Everything about Mantra of Concentration – going right down to its core concept – is just backwards.

Kalico.9246:

I really don’t understand why you guys don’t like IoL. I used it ALL THE TIME in dungeons. Means you can keep moving and revive party members who got stomped by some aoe or res someone far away without having to run over to them. Seriously saves butts in long tricky fights.

It’s not IoL that sucks; it’s res skills as a whole. There are very few bosses in this game who render F ressing impossible, and even fewer if you’re taking Medic’s Feedback, and fewer still (have we hit 0 yet?) if you’re a coordinated team who can quickly 4man res someone. Even when you are facing one of these bosses, a res every 2 minutes is far from ideal. Furthermore, the boss needs to be spawning ads for the IoLed player to kill, or you haven’t actually achieved anything; if they run to safety so you can F res them afterwards, you haven’t allowed yourself to “keep moving and… res someone far away without having to run over to them” at all.

The utility slot is much better used for something that will actually keep your allies alive in the first place, such as Null Field, Feedback, healing traited mantras, or even Blink. Blink will cut out the “running over to” your ally you speak of and will give you more survivability yourself with a much shorter cooldown to boot.

It seems to me the res skills were made with PvP in mind. They can be useful in 8v8 when you have 4 people trying to stomp your ally and no AoE CC available, but in 5v5s that isn’t going to happen. We’ll just have to sit back and see how the meta develops on those.

Allow me to address some individual skills that have been singled out in responses so far. Note everything I’m about to say is purely my opinion, and I’d be happy to discuss these (but I won’t be back until later today).

Mantra of Distraction is REALLY good. It gives you 2 interrupts in a fight, much better than Signet of Domination’s one. Wait, there’s more! The interrupt is instantaneous which means it is actually a true interrupt skill. You can use it to interrupt that 1second healing skill whilst the mesmer stood next to you has to sit out the cast time of Signet of Domination and ultimately misses the interrupt. Traiting into Domination also allows Mantra of Distraction to stack up masses of vulnerability just from the minor traits. Right now, I actually prefer MoD over SoD.

Mantra of Resolve is also okay, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it buffed slightly.

Mantra of Concentration is terrible and can not compare to the guardian skill “Stand Your Ground!” which completely blows it out of the water. To save you having to look it up, SYG is a shout (instant cast), AoE 5 second stability and retaliation on a 30 second cooldown.

Mantra of Pain, while having its niche uses, needs to be reworked. My issue with this skill is the fact the only thing it does is deal damage. There is no utility element here. Make it apply vulnerability or something – anything – that allows it to live up to the name of utility skill.

Illusion of Life is the fastest casting and fastest recharging non-elite revive skill in the game. It is AoE and if the ally fails to kill a foe they merely go back into downed state. This can be used on an ally who then just runs around a corner to safety so that they can be easily ressed when it ends. Sadly, as with all resses, it is somewhat overshadowed by the fact everyone can combat res which makes the situations where you’d rather use a res skill over an F res very small. Still, in comparison to other res skills in the game, I’d argue this is one of the best.

Mimic has its niche, such as reflecting Kill Shot, but that niche is so small you’d only ever bring if you knew you were 1v1ing a rifle warrior :| I don’t really understand how Anet ever thought this skill was remotely good. Are we missing something? Is the tooltip missing information about a functionality that makes this skill insane? So far I’ve only really used it to make some fun screenshots with its shield-like animation.

I personally think the devs made a mistake in allocating our stun breakers. Skills like Signet of Midnight are mediocre, but become great because of the stun break. However, this is then overshadowed by skills like Decoy which are already fantastic and then have a stun breaker thrown on top.

Animus.6073:

I find it astonishing that that is really your theory. It is completely based on the recharge rate of the abilities. Look at literally any weapon set in the game (except thieves-I think their system is based on how much initiative each ability costs).

Prior to this patch the mesmer staff Chaos Armor (4) had a 40 second cooldown and Chaos Storm (5) had 30 seconds. Other examples of weapons which do not match the cooldown theory include the warrior sword offhand and ele earth dagger offhand. The cooldown of a skill is strongly related to the time when it is appropriate for a player to learn the skill. Giving you a 40 second cooldown in skill 2, for example, is absurd.

After reading back my post the opening paragraph sounds a bit snotty :p I did not mean to sound derogatory or aggressive, and apologise if that is how it comes across.

I find it astonishing people are throwing around theories of cooldowns and skill functionality when no one has considered the actual in-game limitation that is imposed by skill ordering: new players.

Skill order is very important because it dictates the order you learn skills.

With Symbol of Wrath’s nerf, particularly the cooldown, and the overall aim to make retaliation less sustainable, giving Symbol of Wrath as your second skill is just stupid. You may as well not have the second skill.

I get the impression Anet want to make retaliation something you apply for when the foe is about to use a powerful attack. You can’t expect a player who has just unlocked skill 2 to have any understanding of monster animations and use this mechanic correctly. With a 20second cooldown to boot, the skill becomes completely pointless and you’d just keep spamming 1 all day.

Sure Anet could let you reorder skills once you’ve unlocked them all, but it isn’t in the game yet. Sadly, we just have to accept the order of our skills is controlled by the level 1 viability of the weapon and suck it up.

Illusion of Drowning grants the foe reflection. Additionally, the animation only shows 10% of the time (confirmed on a variety of video cards from both ATI and NVidia).

Warden’s Feedback works perfectly fine, although it falters on bosses (despite Feedback working) which might be fully intentional. Focus skills are just the two skills given when you equip a focus. Warden’s Feedback turns your Temporal Curtain into a wall of reflection. That is devastatingly powerful in WvW choke points such as bridges.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the staff is a bad weapon at all, but once you get over the feeling of staves being mandatory you realise how good the other options are. Based on the description of a typical fight the OP gave us, I don’t think the staff is worth the weapon slot. By the time he has the Duelist up the CS will have ended, so we’re not getting confusion from that. Blink doesn’t count a finisher, so the storm is giving us nothing here. He applies CA then boasts the foe is stunned all the time anyway. Only the actual hard effect of CS is being used here. Poison – good. Weakness – the foe is stunned. Chilled – the foe is stunned. Daze – the foe is stunned. Swiftness – stunned. Retaliation – stunned. Aegis – stunned. It just feels very redundant.

I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but I would advise you to stop using the staff as a crutch. I’ve been playing since the betas and back then I too thought the staff was too good of a defensive weapon to ever let go of as your secondary set regardless of your build. However now I couldn’t disagree with that notion more. You are taking a big fat 0 for condition damage (outside of Signet of Domination), and the staff’s defensive boons are all random and thus unreliable. The greatsword will offer you AoE cripple and AoE knockback (which gets people off points so you can actually cap it) whilst still providing a strong damaging set.

Lately I’ve been trying out 30/20/20/0/0 with sword/sword, greatsword, Ether Feast, Mantra of Distraction, Mirror Images and Arcane Thievery. With traits applying vulnerability on interrupt, daze and shatter you can very quickly stack up masses of vulnerability on your foe. This is particularly deadly when the game is new and people are running glass cannon set ups everywhere. Pop Power Lock to interrupt that nasty thief’s combo, turn around and smash their glass into a million pieces. They have stability? Break stun with Mirror Images, use Distortion and chain into Blurred Frenzy.

As a mesmer I’m not looking for the way to maximise my burst because I just don’t see the class working like that. We have reduced damage in comparison to other classes to compensate for the fact we can leave the foe utterly helpless while we annihilate them. In contrast, you have taken the maximise DPS approach which is evident in the way you stun your foe, then use Blurred Frenzy. I cannot agree with the logic in this play at all. Blurred Frenzy gives you invulnerability while it channels. A stunned foe is already unable to attack you. BF is something I use in the face of, for example, Hundred Blades (warrior).

I disagree. I think when Anet buffed mantras to x2 casts by default, they made them really good. Mantra of Distraction provides you with 2 on demand interrupts per fight. Combine this with traits such as inflicting daze causes vulnerability and interrupting causes vulnerability and you’re laughing. Very rarely will you see me in PvE without MoD.

People are quick to discount Mantra of Resolve as being bad without comparing to what other classes have to offer in the condition removal department. MoR is actually an okay skill, but it would benefit from being buffed to 3 conditions (considering the only thing it does is remove conditions). The instant cast lets you get rid of your conditions immediately, unlike other classes who have to wait out the cast animation whilst their condition stack eats their HP away, and the 1second cooldown is icing on the cake.

Mantra of Pain needs work. This is a utility skill but the only thing it does is deal damage. It needs to apply vulnerability or something.

Mantra of Concentration just cannot compare to “Stand Your Ground!” (Guardian). This mantra is terrible right now. 2 seconds isn’t even enough to use Finish Him in PvP. So what if it instant casts? The whole point in stability is to prevent my key skill being interrupted. That means I will be applying stability before I start the skill. In PvE it is completely pointless because mobs have such drawn out animations before their stuns you can easily dodge / interrupt them.

I find the first two mantas I mentioned to be very strong pickups even without any mantra orientated traits. The latter two are just… meh. I use MoC in WvW but only because we don’t have access to any other form of stability.

Mantra traits also need work. For example, Restorative Mantras only heals when you charge the mantra, not when you use the Power X skill. This makes no sense. By design, mantas are meant to be used outside of combat. I don’t know if they intend you to use this in a heavy mantra build and walk around mid combat charging them or what, but I am not seeing the appeal in this trait at all.