Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running pretty much the same exact build but well and alacrity focused instead of the phantasm synergy. With the well of recall instead of illusion signet and healing well you have permanent alacrity and a bit extra condi clear and team support, but I can see how the defender synergy can be very strong with chronophanstma and ether signet as well as the shield block. Once ministrels gets fixed the boom share inspiration trait might even become viable! Overall though bunker Mesmer seems extremely strong. It is rediculously durable and having portal to rotate and not be vulnerable to decaps is a strong advantage over other bunkers. Its refreshing to see a build that may be as viable as standard shatter, which has been the optimal play style for Mesmer since beta.

Tank/heal Mesmer got super buffed. Been having a lot of fun. You have perma stability from shatters, as well as perma vigor, prot, and projectile reflect. crazy condi removal with mantra of healing, mantra of resolve, and condo removal on shatter.You can chain 12s of resistance with null field portal and time warp for your entire team making condi spikes useless. Insane team utility and healing, good stomper, good interrupts and lockdown. Despite all of the increased damage, I feel way more tankier than before the patch.

The same thing with ileap. The skill spawns a clone immediately but has an unnecessary cast time. Canceling it lets you swap slightly faster, reduce the recharge time, or cast something else right away like a phantasm before swapping or autoing to remove blind or aegis to get the immobolize.

Fixes: Buff ileap to 1/4s cast time which is roughly the same as sheath cancelling it.

Nerf greatsword auto to complete at end of cast.

Please fix sheath cancelling for greatsword auto attack and for illusionary leap cast time. Pressing sheath whenever we use these skills should not be an optimal requirement

Mesmer additions:

Illusionary leap cancel. Illusionary leap has a cast time of 3/4 seconds but the clone jumps out immediately. Sheath cancel the cast time after the clone jumps out to allow for another ability (like an auto to remove blind/aegis before swapping) note casting swap immediately automatically cancels the aftercast if you don’t want to cast anything else

Forward Phase Retreat: Disable auto-targetting and use about face keybinding to teleport forwards using phase retreat.

I wouldn’t say it’s a bug or exploit.The sheath canceling is working as intended for these skills. Using it interrupts the cast time. The problem lies with certain skills themselves where the utility or purpose of the skill is completed before the actual cast time. For example, mesmer GS1 and Ileap. You ALWAYS want to sheath cancel these skills because they have extra unnecessary cast times that serve no purpose but to slow down your gameplay.

You don’t have to dodge to cancel abilities. What I meant by sheath canceling is using the sheath weapon keybind to interrupt skills, and in this case bypass aftercasts In the case of GS1 you can repeatedly sheath after the third hit which will completely get rid of the aftercast allowing you to auto much faster and do more dps than if you didn’t sheath cancel.

No one thinks this is an issue? Especially for great sword auto and I leap? I’m sure other professions have skills that can be sheath-cancelled to optimize. I’ll start testing other skills and will post back here. Channeled multihit skills seem to have extra after casts. Are there also any other special cases like ileap?

In GW2 there are many abilities with a small aftercast. If you sheath your weapon immediately after using the ability you can bypass the aftercast and save yourself a lot of time that can be very game-changing. Some may say that this adds skill depth. However, for many skills this just becomes habit, and does not add any meaningful skill elements. For example, I play mostly Mesmer so I will list a few abilities where sheath-cancelling provides a direct benefit, not really increasing skill depth but just becoming a habit (Exception: Blurred Frenzy see below!). For each skill I will explain the phenomenon and a proposed balance solution.

Greatsword Auto Attack: This ability has a 1 1/2 second cast time but the third hit actually occurs at around 1 second! If you sheath immediately after the third hit you can start a new auto attack, saving yourself ~.5 seconds per auto greatly increasing your dps! This ability is one of the greatest offenders where sheath-cancelling provides an immense direct benefit with no trade-off. You MUST sheath-cancel this ability to maximize its potential.

SOLUTION: Spread the triple attack so that the third hit actually occurs at the end of the cast time. This is a nerf for experienced players but greatsword imo needs a nerf.

Illusionary Leap: This ability has a 3/4 second cast time but after using the ability, the clone will leap immediately and the skill with switch to swap. If you look closely you will notice that swap will begin on a cooldown of .2 seconds before you can use it. If you use swap immediately you do not have to sheath cancel because using swap behaves like a sheath cancel and will cancel out the remaining cast time of illusionary leap on its own. (Intended?) However, many times it is best NOT to swap right away to bait out dodge rolls or save it to dodge a skill. But doing so leaves a useless, hefty 3/4 second cast time. In this situation it is ALWAYS beneficial to sheath-cancel to perhaps start summoning a phantasm or get a quick blurred frenzy or autos. This has no downsides or trade-offs and once again must always be done to maximize this skill if you choose not to swap right away.

SOLUTION: Buff the cast time of ileap to 1/5 of a second, equal to the time before you can use swap. Most new or average players will swap immediately anyway so this has no effect on them, but it removes the necessity to sheath cancel for experienced players if you choose not to swap immediately.

Blurred Frenzy: This skill has a cast time of 2 1/2 seconds. The 4 hits of damage occur during 2 seconds however so you can sheath cancel the remaining 1/2 seconds and begin an auto-attack faster increasing your damage or start casting another skill. Unlike the greatsword or ileap however, sheath-cancelling this ability HAS a tradeoff. If you cancel this ability early you will lose 1/2 seconds of evade. I believe this a good case where sheath-cancelling provides more skill depth. You sheath-cancel the aftercast to increase your dps or cast something else but you expose yourself for an extra 1/2 of a second. Nothing should be done here.

Sheath-cancelling is also useful to interrupt your own skills. For example, I start to cast a phantasm and I get blinded. To not waste the cooldown I sheath-cancel the cast. This is a great functionality and adds skill depth so nothing should be done to this specific functionality.

I’m sure there are many other skills that have the problem where sheath-cancelling is a necessity to remove aftercasts. This just becomes a habit for experienced players and newer players are left in the dark and most do not even know about sheath-cancelling. This does not add any skill depth in my opinion and sheath-canceling should be removed for skills where it provides a direct benefit and simply becomes habit.

Please post your thoughts on the matter and also any skills that use this functionality to evade aftercasts, and also any proposed solutions. Sorry for the long post and walls of text (I have no clue how to format properly.)! Thanks for reading if you read all the way through haha!

-Exasol

Some guy is in the 70’s

shatter mez
d/p thief
power necro
s/f ele

all are viable for solo q

:(

Yes extremely advantageous. Not sure if intended though this had been around since beta.

Nope the leaping clone applies the cripple if it hits! The casting literally does nothing because all of the funtionality of the skill is associated with the leaping clone which occurs instantly. I also just found out that another advantage of sheath canceling the cast is that the skill will actually recharge around 1.5 seconds faster.

EDIT: The poster above me got deleted? It was saying that completing the cast applied cripple but that is wrong!

I posted this in the mesmer forums but I guess it’s more appropriate here.

Aside from the pathing issues that we all loathe about the skill, (and cannot be fixed apparently), I wanted to bring more attention to another nuance/bug that this skill has that either needs to be modified.

What I’m talking about it the cast time which is 3/4 of a second. However when you cast the skill, the leaping clone will occur instantly leaving you with an unnecessary cast time.
Currently mesmers can bypass this extra 3/4 of a second cast time by either dodge rolling immediately after casting leap, or sheathing weapon. Especially with sheathing, bypassing the cast time allows mesmers to get a few extra auto attacks or spells in before swapping. Very useful for removing blind/aegis before swapping or laying down a quick null field and probably many more advantages. I don’t know if this is intended but this skill has essentially no cast time because of these mechanics, because the main purpose of the skill is the leaping clone which occurs instantly.

I propose that the skill be reduced to a 1/4 second cast time. (Not instant because that would be slightly op. Pre-casting leap as a pseudo-stunbreak is good to maintain mesmer skillcap) This buff would save mesmers the extra burden of sheathing weapon after casting leap, which we must do to avoid the unnecessary extra cast time of the skill. If the 3/4 second cast time was intended then you can also nerf the skill by causing the leaping clone to only occur once the cast is complete, however I don’t think mesmers need such a nerf Thanks for reading!

Yea it is pretty pointless haha. But for now we can get around it by sheathing. Lets us squeeze in few extra autos or spells! Also very useful for getting rid of blind or aegis before you swap.

Illusionary leap has another bug in which the leaping clone occurs instantly after casting the spell, rather then after the 3/4 second cast time. By sheathing you can bypass this cast time. Not sure if intended. See my thread for details.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Illusionary-Leap-Simple-Casting-Fix/first#post2690788

Aside from the pathing issues that we all loathe about the skill, (and cannot be fixed apparently), I wanted to bring more attention to another nuance/bug that this skill has that either needs to be nerfed or buffed, preferably buffed.

What I’m talking about it the cast time which is 3/4 of a second. However when you cast the skill, the leaping clone will occur instantly leaving you with an unnecessary cast time.
Currently mesmers can bypass this extra 3/4 of a second cast time by either dodge rolling immediately after casting leap, or sheathing weapon. I don’t know if this is intended but this skill has essentially no cast time because of these mechanics, because the main purpose of the skill is the leaping clone which occurs instantly.

I propose that the skill be buffed to a 1/4 second cast time. (Not instant because that would be slightly op. Pre-casting leap as a pseudo-stunbreak is good to maintain mesmer skillcap) This buff would save mesmers the extra burden of sheathing weapon after casting leap, which we must do to avoid the unnecessary extra cast time of the skill. If the 3/4 second cast time was intended then you can also nerf the skill by causing the leaping clone to only occur once the cast is complete, however I don’t think mesmers need such a nerf Thanks for reading!

Or you can gauntlet gambit farm deadeye for 30g/hour and make much more than any of these with minimal effort

Any nerf yet today?

Yup I can confirm deadeye farming still not killed yet.

I agree that lag can be a issue, but with the rights builds deadeye and subject 7 are so mind numbingly easy that the risk/reward ratio when gambit farming becomes really skewed. Even if the majority of the population is not doing this farm, the people that are still making tons of money with virtually no effort. (Myself included heh) I disagree with the nerf and the future deadeye nerf that will probably happen but I guess it’s kind of justifiable

Farm deadeye and profit lol. Still making 20g/hr off him

I’m farming deadeye also and making almost 20g/hour. Intended?

Yea I’m using a full zerk Mesmer and deadeye goes down extremely fast. Just make sure to not take the squeamish gambit which reduces your dmg. Full zerker definitely helps haha.

Haha yea it can get a bit dull but I think it’s one of the most efficient farming methods out there.

Found a reddit thread with a warrior doing the same thing but with subject 7. It has math included about the profit too if anyone is interested! http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1jwqfx/30s_a_minute_queens_gauntlet_farm_details_inside/

Yup gambits don’t offer extra rewards, they just maximize rewards per time spent. Just wanted to let everyone know its possible to farm a bit of money from the gauntlet with gambits.

Currently making around 12+g/hr farming deadeye with 4 gambits. He takes about 30 seconds to kill and each run nets around 30s profit. Use the sprockets you get to buy more tickets and enjoy lots of $$!!

1: Alternative game modes, especially arena.

2: Improvement of glory/rank system and spvp rewards. Keep the rank grind just introduce many more rewards that can be purchased with glory such as more skins and cosmetics (dyes or gem shop items maybe?) . Also more cool stuff like /rank (allow in wvw also!) to show pvers your awesome pvp side. Maybe show pvp rank in guild roster.

3: Weapon set/trait balancing for each profession. Improve lots of useless traits and weapon abilities to open up new builds!

I’m hoping for Spvp skill versions/balance to apply to WvW

I’m sorry I meant balance changes to skills from weapons. For example in the mid-November patch: “Grenade: This skill’s damage has been decreased by 10% in PvP only.” How come split changes like these don’t affect WvW balance?

Why do PvE instead of PvP skill versions apply to WvW?

How to beat mesmer as a thief:

Step 1: Make sure you have some toughness and you aren’t a complete glass cannon noob. Valkyries amulet is a great choice.
Step 2: Equip Shortbow and make sure you have signet of malice equipped.
Step 3: Spam 2
Step 4: Laugh maniacally as you watch the mesmer flailing around helplessly getting his clones/phantasms insta killed as they spawn while you heal for an absurd amount whenever he spawns them.