(edited by Higginbotham.9562)
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So I used before runes of Lyssa for the condi removal on MI. I’m still doing that but thinking about a chance. I always have crit procs on one weapon set and energy proc on the other but that is also a remnant from my DE/shatter build. Thinking seriously about changing those. zerker jewel and amulet still getting good crit numbers even with 0 or 10 in Dueling (I’m switching between 10-0 and 0-10 to see which I like better).
Torch is for Prestige which still gets buffs. Remember with 30 for PU you get +30% boon duration which is pretty fantastic when coupled with shattered strength and PU.
Sort of a good mix of power, condition, shatter, and bunker.
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I am actually living without Deceptive Evasion. Running Sword/Torch and Staff, with Decoy, Mirror Images, and Veil + MI. This stealth build is annoying the crap out of other players (the way thieves annoy the crap out of me) and has good survivability even with low vitality (zerkers amulet and jewel) and decent damage (particularly with shattered strength). I never thought I would be able to spec out of DE but actually had a lot of fun and was doing 1v2 and not having trouble surviving and wearing them down.
PU is now worth designing a spec around.
(edited by Higginbotham.9562)
Just did my first tournament since patch. All my clones and phantasms appeared naked and would not move or attack. They would still shatter. Not happening in hot join or in the mists when I test. Serious serious bug.
I’ve got to agree that point control has gotten way boring. Basically the maps are just slight variations on Nordenwatch from WAR. With all the game types in WAR one would think ANet could just copy the concept from the other good scenarios like Battle for Praag or even the more basic capture the flag motif of WoW scenarios. I mean these types of games are pretty obvious. Then there’s Mourkain Temple, Tor Anroc, Howling Gorge, it just goes on and on. There is just no reason not to have more maps. ANet has WAR beat by far far far on class balance (even with complaints right now it just is no contest) and general design (dodge plus limited CC makes for a lot more fun than the crowd control and AOE issues that plagued WAR at the beginning). But ANet needs to catch up on maps and go way beyond conquest.
The responses here are a ton of fun and there is so much I agree with. A few thoughts.
(1) Moa — Funny enough I also do not use it (I run MI mostly) but it sure seems to agitate other players. One thing I appreciated about the design of other games is that not making people upset = more people playing = more people playing = better game. In other words, even if Moa is not something top mesmers (like some commentators here) use, it bugs other players when it is used and should be nerfed or eliminated (I would love a new elite and that “your world is an illusion” one sounds really cool.
(3) On clones I think there is a good argument going back and forth here. Everyone agrees scepter clones are useless. Everyone agrees that clones should be equalized. Almost everyone has outvoted me and says scepter clones need a buff versus quasi-nerfing or laterally changing the others (my proposal was maybe to take conditions out of the clone business and just let them all do some direct damage). But the agreement on scepter is a key point.
(5) I think I have to concede on iDuelist that ANet knows the numbers and I do not except subjectively.
(6) I cede to the crowd on BF except for the upsetting other player point, which I think is something to consider.
(i) so surprised to hear people like GS3 and seriously never really thought about it from a PvE perspective where obviously it would have some use. Basically not worth the skill twitch it takes for me to successfully land it in sPvP — maybe I’m just not that great.
(ii) full agreement that iMage stinks
(iii) I’ll stand down on staff too, I’m persuaded by the group that nothing is wrong.
(iv) (NEW FROM PURPLE SKIES) agree with purpleskies that scepter autoattack also needs some additional effect (maybe just to conform to the tooltip)
For the critics: Mesmer is my main. I play mostly a shatter focused staff/GS build but have also played Scepter/Pistol / GS and Scepter/Torch / GS as well as Sword/Sword / GS.
I have virtually only played Mesmer since BWE3.
Alanis, I can see your point on 5 and should have noted that it is another one I put in the unsure category. Glad to see that rational other mesmers see how moa and iBeserker LOS are big problems.
Blurred frenzy I don’t have a good handle on whether it is fine or not. It sure does seem to bother other players, which suggests to me the ability to get distortion so much through shatter and BF is annoying.
Did not mean to merge my mantra musings with my suggestion of an issue with staff with Chaos Storm and Chaos Armor on such long cds now. But as I said, I’m not sure of a solution. I switched away from staff after the cd nerf and went back because Phase Retreat is just too good to not have.
So there is about to be a patch and I thought I would throw out what I think is working and what isn’t for Mesmer in PvP. There are a lot of complaints about us (not as much as thieves) and some of them are justified — some are not.
I’ll start with justified.
(1) Moa has just got to go or be substantially nerfed. Imagine an “I win” button that was on a 5 minute cooldown. No one would ever want that in the game even though it had a long cooldown. So the long-ish cooldown of moa does not justify its power. Either nerf it to a shorter duration or make the attack abilities good enough that someone who knows what they are doing can kick butt with it. Do not increase the cool down because that doesn’t really help.
(2) To the extent that the stealth rendering bug is affecting us that has to go too.
(3) We need our clones to be normalized in terms of effects — what I mean is that scepter clones are useless and staff and sword clones are quite powerful. And I hate to say it but the latter two need a bit of a nerd and the former a buff. I think ANet might want to consider just going back to the time when clones did some amount of damage but do not proc WoC or bleeds. This might be an unpopular suggestion and it is the one I am least sure about. What I am sure about is that scepter clones need a big buff because scepter in PvP is lame.
(4) iBeserker LoS has got to be fixed. It is dumb the way it is and people are right to complain about it.
(5) I think iDuelist could possibly use a damage nerf — iWarlock can’t burst much without conditions on the target and iBeserker is not out of wack. iWarden is huge but so hard to land. iSwordsman right on target.
(6) I think blurred frenzy annoys the crap out of other players — maybe a cd nerf is in order? This is another one I am not too sure about.
Now, unjustified complaints come from people who get rolled by mesmers but are pretty non-specific about why. Two points.
(a) our damage is not out of proportion to other classes at all (except maybe iDuelist)
(b) tons of people still have not figured out how to “spot the real mesmer” which is trivial unless the real mesmer stands still and only auto attacks. I fight people every day in sPvP who have no clue which one I am.
Some other buffs I think have to happen.
(i) GS 3 is just awful and useless
(ii) iMage is a joke and makes Torch useless even though the prestige is fun
(iii) The cooldown nerfs on staff make it a lot less fun because two of your abilities are not up for large chunks of time. That said I don’t know of a good solution
Don’t know enough to say about mantras except that making them into a utility ability just means sacrificing so much (Mirror Image, Decoy, Portal, Signet). Long term they should add a one-hand and an off-hand weapon that both use mantras and then if people want to trait into the benefits they can. But for now I think mantras are kind of a dead zone (I have seen a mesmer specced for mantras precisely once and thought it was cool in a novelty sense).