Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I just finished a game where the following happened:

-Instead of the map loading my game froze, even had to hard reset my pc.
-I came back in with a 115-180 deficit
-We still managed to win (and got a personal reward for defensive)
-I got my pips for the victory
-Yet I lost 30 ratingpoints ???

I’m assuming this is a bug?

Have you guys looked at the EU reset times based on activity also? Remember that relatively a lot of people in the EU participate in some kind of teamsports, most being played on Saturdays. Especially for those with young kids that’ll be during reset times, while evenings never had that issue, preventing them to enjoy one of the most exciting moments of WVW across the week and one of the most consistent and active guild based events for any guild with a wvw section. Please reconsider the EU reset times to take that into account.

Shield 4 feels….strange. As a block it’s great, but iavenger is simply pointless as it is now. iavenger popping on top of your target means it’s instantly killed (unless you trait for inv on spawn, which gets it killed a second later and at least makes it hit once). Please revert it back to the ranged phantasm it was. The aoe slow sure is a lot better then the bouncing projectile, but it really needs range to be viable for at least pvp/wvw.

Wells: Gravity well is great again, I hope it’s not changed anymore. As far as the other wells go:
-The heal well is probably the poorest heal we got, since it’s hard to get the end heal and has a to long cooldown. It would be great if that cd was lowered back to 20 seconds to bring it closer to some of our other heals.

-General wells: Making all of them 1/4sec to cast would be nice so they are harder to dodge. The big thing they produce is already after 3 seconds so why not at least make it hit the first pulse instead of being to obvious what you’re doing. I can see why you want gravity well to be harder to land given it’s potency, but the others shouldn’t break any balance issues by being close to instant cast.

Bug: Shield 5 occasionally still fails to bounce after hitting a rock on the way, including in the raid instance vs barriers. Haven’t been able to persistently reproduce it, but it happens still on various locations.

Sounds like a classic psu failure. It ticks all the boxes. Try another powersupply, preferably a good brand, since you need consistent power which “random” brands usually don’t give, despite listing them as being able to do so.

Really people: there is more to clones and mesmers then just dps. For those that tried the bwe’s for HoT you’ll have noticed pve becomes a notch harder (is it enough? not sure) and raids should be a lot harder for sure. We don’t just got mindwrack to consider here. More clones=more shatter options.

If you calculate our clone generation (@ TS you love math, so go ahead) and use an optimal traited shatter sequence you will see that a quicker clone generation will lead to a shift in that department. Ow and I do mean optimal including HoT (alacrity), so chronomancer, since that’s where we are going afterall and what the devs will be looking at dps wise. If that was just for mindwrack it would be ok, but interrupts (f3) can hurt (powerblock, quickness, bountifull, mistrust and come HoT: slow), confusion ain’t bad (f2) and the dreaded f4 when traited to share with your party can simply be a party lifesaver and thus a gamechanger. Add f5 to that and it would be shatter as soon as you can all the time. i also didn’t take the other shatter effects we can add to them into account (blind + ineptitude or torment)

Yes scepter as I mentioned before needs a buff, more clone creation at close range ain’t the solution for that. Fix the cast time when ranged (which often will be the starting point in pve also) would fix 1 part. Do something with the main output besides that. But really: Don’t take the clones away. Though limited in use they got their place in roaming and even pvp.

What is wrong with your example is that you took a power build and judge it based on that alone. Since shatters can be used for so many variations that’s not enough data to make a statement about something working or not. If you do the math on any possible build it might make sense, but just “another zerk” doesn’t do justice to the condition potential scepter and shatters has. Example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAraWlsnh20YrawBNQtGLCHlZB0ABQ9mOqpKaLMRpGA-TxBBABAcKAmW9nqV+58TAQ69HeWfgaKBDAcAMexL+4BGf8xHf8xb8xHf8xHvUAPK2C-e try to do the same math (incl quickness uptime) with that build, or probably a rampager one would be even higher in dps. Also don’t forget that for balance you can’t just look at pve alone.

Pack + SoI is a close to perm swiftness and gives you a nice boost.

Sadly the best counter to a scepter using mesmer is indeed staying ranged. It’s an obvious bug that really should have your priority Robert, since it’s holding the weapon and several builds back a lot.

As far as the dps argument goes: it just doesn’t hold compared to other classes. If you talk about bursts you got a fair point, but not in dps (sustain). Over a 30 second fight a mesmer won’t get close to an ele for example not even with the shatter bursts. That being said: the bursts coming from shatters are massive and can be an issue if we can have full shatters more often, which would happen with faster clone creation. What people forget is that shatters ain’t just about dps, but you can create havoc with them as well as a relative long invulnerability. For that reason alone speeding scepter more up then it is, would be a balance issue. Key here is: I’m talking about a correctly working scepter with the creation speed in melee range. Speeding that up would become a nightmare.

Request: So please Robert, can you take a deep look into it and fix the scepter so that staying ranged isn’t punishing it? Just make the hit instant or increase the velocity of the projectile with 100% so that range ain’t a counter anymore. Another option would be to simply continue the cycle instead of waiting for the first projectile to hit/get out of range. It shouldn’t be a hard fix and would sure help the scepter a lot.

Besides that big QoL change: The scepter could do with some more potency in conditions just like other classes got more potency on their scepters. The clones are nice, but for 90% of the situations won’t do a lot of good since they spawn in melee range and thus are cleaved instantly instead of being shatter food. Add more torment (2 stacks/hit instead of 1 to bring it in line with necro/rev?) or confusion to it (to match the traitline where scepter is a gm in).

Yvi.5762:

I only read 2 sections but I disagree on both and I think you are aiming in the wrong direction.

Clones / Phantasms die to cleave, so you want more. The real solution is fix cleave by giving AoE immunity (Or damage reduction) so they don’t get killed immediately. Increasing generation is a bandage that will impact other areas.

Then you don’t like Torment so you want it changed to Confusion. Again the real solution is to make Torment useful. I even think Torment fits a Mesmer just as well as Confusion.

I will read the rest later, but bare in mind that you need to fix the source of problems not just avoid them.

If you read it all you’d have noticed I posted both things you mentioned above for a solution as well as offering an alternative to those suggestions.

As far as torment is concerned: I like the idea behind it, but even if you look at our traits we got non that benefit torment (only one that gives torment on shatter: maim), while we got multiple around confusion (on shatter (adept), on interrupt, on blind, longer duration (grandmaster)), just like we got a traitline build around vulnerability. From that perspective confusion would make more sense, though improving torment, just like they are considering for revenants, should do just fine.

During the last 3 years a lot has changed for mesmers. Most being nerfs (confusion, scepter) and some general quality of life improvements. With HoT around the corner and the new trait system in place: What are the things that could and should be improved to make mesmers a lot more interesting to play as well as put it in a better spot compared to other classes for different parts of the game:

Deceptive EvasionA lot has been said about Deceptive Evasion as a trait, with chronomancer we get IR and still the feedback has been quite consistent: Deceptive Evasion is a must for virtually any build. So why should it be baseline:

-As stated before by the Devs themselves the class itself relies on shattering. Something the devs have recognised before in making the cooldowns 15% lower as a baseline, with another 15% gained from the illusions traitline.

Key here therefore is: We need illusions to shatter, while maintaining a balancing act so it’s not a perma shatter spike. So what can we do now? If you trait illusions these are the cooldowns:

Mind wrack: 10.25 seconds
cof: 21.25 seconds
diversion: 31.25 seconds
distortion: 42.5 seconds

That’s 8 shatters in 42.5 seconds or 5.31 seconds for 3 clones.

Without DE and using a scepter (our main clone generating weapon) we pop a clone every 1.75 seconds for 3 clones every 5.25 seconds. All seems fine doesn’kitten We got phantasms to match those clones? Euhm……..no.

During all changes many classes got access to cleaving skills on auto attacks (necro dagger for example), while clones never changed. This means in any pvp/wvw situation clones more often then not are collateral damage. This for most fights takes us to a place where we simply lack shatter ammunition. It’s like saying to a warrior you can’t build adrenaline or an elementalist to not being able to change attunements: it prevents us from using our class mechanics to it’s full potential.

Enter DE: With Deceptive Evasion we got a reasonable additional source to pop some clones out. It’s far from perfect, but it gives us a little bit of room to play with our class mechanics. Given how that currently is situated in the game and it being the only way for us to have any reasonable chance of at least shattering something: Please make DE baseline. It would open up a lot more build variation at the same time, since duelist line is no longer obligatory to take.

In the past this would have been impossible since killing clones gave conditions to those around it, but since all of that got removed there should be no boundry anymore to change this.

Phantasms in pvp/wvw

For pve I think they are at a fine spot. At worldbosses like Golem Mark II they take reduced damage and can survive in order to be functional. However just like I mentioned above: Phantasms didn’t evolve with the rest of the game. The main damage output and cleaving on auto attacks has become so big that more often then not phantasms are another innocent bystander being killed without people even trying to do so. The only exception if well placed might be iduelist due to the range it has, but that’s about it. It kills a lot of build variation we could and probably should have. Any phantasms within a 600 or less range will be insta killed.

Just to be clear: This doesn’t change if you trait for your phantasms to have more hp (persisting images). The raw dps in game has simply increased to much with all the buffs most classes had. A solution could be really simple and given how iavenger has become melee now even more important then it already is:
-Either give them the damage reduction they receive on worldbosses in every situation so people will need to hit them more often to kill them instead of the accidental aoe
-Make phantasms stronger baseline (more hp or probably better: more toughness independant of gear) for a similar result. This in term would synergize nicely with chronophantasm, which has and will suffer from the same squishyness.

Scepter

Amongst our main hand/double handed weapons we got 1 a bit OP (GS when traited), 2 in a solid spot (staff and sword) and 1 really sluggish still: The scepter.
The weapon some love and many dislike really could use some tlc. The speedboost is great. It really is. The change to confusing images was just spot on. It needed to be faster and hit a bit more. Skill 2 was perfect if you block with it, though the blind is slugish.

Sadly: The auto attack is what really hurts when you compare it to other classes. The attack itself is decent both in damage and speed, but it’s the torment that is out of sink. Part of this comes down to the nature of torment: It’s just not that potent a condition and 1 stack (~85 damage/second) is nothing but a tickle for classes like warriors or necro’s who got over 20k hp. It’s something even the devs themselves recognise if you take a look at the bwe3 rev change notes.

Just a little reminder of where scepter is coming from: Instead of torment it started out as giving confusion, which perfectly fits the mesmer theme and skill 3 of the same weapon. It was a way to punish people for acting against us and yes with the old confusion, before it got nerfed to the ground, it was OP for sure. I can see why devs don’t want torment to hurt to hard: a mesmer has access to both torment and confusion so can potentially shut an enemy down from casting and moving making them a sitting duck. however with the new way confusion works:

Why not remove the torment from the scepter and give it it’s old confusion back. The synergy with the illusions line and the rest of the weapon is obvious. (could even change the block to 5 confusion instead of 5 torment). It’ll make it more potent again and much more in line with the theme of the weapon as well as other classes mid ranged weapons. The old confusion issues back in the glam-slam mesmer days are long gone. The game has progressed, people have progressed and the condition itself is a shade of what it was. Yet even as a shade it’s better then torment currently is. On top of that it’s perfect for what a mesmer has been about since gw1: Shutting down opponents or punishing them for ignoring those shutdowns.

Another option would be to give it the same treatment most classes got: make scepter “cleave”. Either by making the third auto attack having an aoe effect or if you really want to stick with torment on it giving it aoe torment just like the sigil does (just double the stack if you do please). I’m sure if you guys run the dps numbers you’ll see it’s lacking.

Interrupts

The last point I want to try and bring forward in this post are interrupts. It put a big smile on my face when you guys introduced the new traits surrounding it. Interrupts are fun playing around, you can trait them to punish your enemies in several ways while they are still hard to land due to timing. However in the bwe I noted something with the potential to seriously hurt the interrupt option: A surplus of stability stacks/resistance for several classes which makes them impossible to land. While many other classes got unblockable skills/trait we got no skills of importance (other then gs3) doing just that. A small suggestion therefore to keep the mesmers unique feeling and interrupt mechanic in place: give us an unblockable interrupt or at least an option to trait for them being unblockable (looking at you mantra of distraction)

The end

To end on a high: I really like the way mesmer and the game in general has involved during the past 3 years. Some things really improved and a lot of bugs finally got fixed. I’m just hoping you guys can take the last step to making mesmers as awesome as they have been in the past and not just looking blindly at 1 weapon/trait combo that is close to overpowered. A lot of classes have gotten massive increases the last year. While there is no need for mesmers to become highest dps class or something close to that it would be great if you could introduce some quality of life improvements that keep us competitive.

Given another Dev brought this up on the revenant feedback topic, might as well ask you to take a look at it Robert.

Since corruption and mallyx is all about being the master of torment and being pushed more that route, I’m playing around with an idea I wanted to run by all of you. Torment is less valued in stationary fights due to the way torment functions. Since torment is the main damaging condition for Revenant, I’ve been thinking about adding functionality to a trait or maybe changing the minor 2 in corruption to increase the base damage torment does while not moving while not increasing the while moving damage to help it become more of a viable option in all areas of the game. What do you all think?

I think most of us will agree that the scepter itself is lacking…..a lot. Main reason being torment ain’t even close to a potent condition source compared to confusion (which it used to be back in the good days). If you guys consider revs to get this treatment, please even the playingfield and add something similar to the scepter trait to bring it more in line with other main hand, medium range, weapons in potential dps. Torment needs some TLC as do some other mesmer things, but especially if other classes get buffs to stuff like this, we as mesmer shouldn’t be left behind.

Edit: Though I know it won’t happen I got to ask: if you consider swapping scepter 1 back to confusion instead of torment you would make a lot of people happy

Since corruption and mallyx is all about being the master of torment and being pushed more that route, I’m playing around with an idea I wanted to run by all of you. Torment is less valued in stationary fights due to the way torment functions. Since torment is the main damaging condition for Revenant, I’ve been thinking about adding functionality to a trait or maybe changing the minor 2 in corruption to increase the base damage torment does while not moving while not increasing the while moving damage to help it become more of a viable option in all areas of the game. What do you all think?

This comes down to the nature of torment itself and ain’t different for a revenant or for example a mesmer scepter. If you really feel torment in itself is in a poor place, don’t just change a trait on rev to boost it, change the condition itself to make it more worth it. I’m pretty sure all classes with access to torment will feel the same about it. A better solution therefore could be: A bigger percentage on base damage, less additional damage on movement. not that different to how confusion was dealt with.

In general just the changes we would need, however:

Illusionary Avenger: Increased damage of this phantasm by 20%. Fixed a bug which prevented this skill from displaying the benefit from Empowered Illusions. Increased alacrity given to 2 seconds per hit. This phantasm no longer shoots a bouncing projectile but instead initiates a melee attack that slows enemies and gives alacrity to allies within a 240 radius around the target. Removed old phantasm description.

The fat part is a really bad idea actually for anything outside of pve. For pvp/wvw: We all know a major issue for phantasms is cleaving attacks most classes got on their auto attacks. It just clears up the phantasms way to fast for them to be of any use. Even izerker is therefore often a casualty, despite it’s attempts to evade. Turning avenger in a melee phantasm will make it so vulnerable that it’s pretty useless in pvp/wvw situations. even more so with chronophantasm dazing them after use, they will be more about shatter food then anything else.

Despite the buff being just perfect (by the looks of it), I really hope you guys considered the above and will make the phantasm leap in and out like izerker does, or preferably even doing the leaping a bit better (blink in and out of melee range would be just awesome and would fit the timemage theme of chronomancer)?. Nobody wants a phantasm that is just popped to be an instant accidental casualty.

-Going to try to make my necro/reaper friend give up again on beating my chronomancer after 20 tries and failing miserably
-Try some more revenant specs
-This time give chrono a try in pve
-Properly test skill 5 placement on shield 5 vs a blob

For a theorycrafter like myself it’s great that legendary armor is finally going live, however I’m hoping you guys considered the following:

Where close to all weapon sigils function no matter which stats/build you pick at any given time, runes got a much bigger impact on builds/playstyle.

A small example: If I chose to go full assassin I can use the fire sigil, sigil of air, just the same as I could when I go sinister. However given the same on armor I lose a lot when I use scholar on the assassin build, compared to scavenger on the sinister one.

Therefore I’m hoping you guys can introduce an option for double runes on legendary armor, with the option to select which rune to use out of combat (so select stats and active rune, instead of just stats). That way we can use the stat selection to its full potential.

Chronophantasma: Increased Daze duration from 1s to 1.5s

Did anyone try spamming Illusionary Berserkers with Continuum Shift and Chronophantasma? This specific combo isn’t the only reason we are adjusting this trait, but we are watching the types of spikes that are coming from Chronomancer in general.

I actually did, though Iduelist is arguably more fun to use (tested a full rampager build for instant 24 bleedstacks ^evil laugh^). However that was in an agreed test environment. In pvp I never managed to get 3 out at the same time, people know those phantasms hurt a lot if left alone, so tend to take them out/cleave them. I understand your worry about overdoing it, however if people are ignorant enough to leave them alone, they pretty much deserve the punishment. It’s not like other classes don’t have similar dps bursts (seen enough warriors bragging about 11k crits in pvp/wvw, that’ll take 3 izerkers critting to manage the same!).

If you really want to buy opponents more time to get rid of them, keep the 1 sec daze and make them all respawn at max range after shattering. That would serve 2 purposes:
-They’ll need to get into position to hit again, taking more then just the 1.5 sec daze
-However they won’t be random victims of cleaving attacks/aoe’s, making them likely to at least have a chance of hitting again.

In the way mentioned above (if technically possible ofc) you’d take away the damage spike issue, while keeping the trait itself worth it for the mesmer by still punishing people being ignorant.

Echo of Memory

Great fix, both the bugs filtered out and the slow was to much for sure.

Well of Eternity: Lowered cast time from 0.75s to 0.25s
The idea behind this skill has always been to wait for the big heal at the end, so it didn’t make sense for the cast time to be as long as it was. Healing numbers still might be adjusted in a future BWE.

Doesn’t the same then apply for all other wells? The idea has always been to wait for the big end after 3 seconds, so why do they need a big casttime? Big compared to necro wells especially, who deal more damage/give more effects the instant they are put down. Please consider reducing casttime on all wells (minus gravity probably) to make them more viable and less “telegraphed”.

:Alacrity

As it is now increased alacrity will have a reduced self effect even when traited, while you are also making it a lot harder to access it. I really feel this is a bit over the top.

-IR change means less clones>>>less full shatters>>>>>less alacrity gain from shattering.
-Alacrity itself is less effective (.75 vs 1 sec). So it’s pretty much a double nerf.

Since I played rampager I also tested the impact of alacrity (traited) on a non shatter spamming condi build (yes I know, unusual) and outside the shatters I never got the feeling alacrity made me change the gameplay compared to a normal mesmer playing the same way. The effect on a big hitting skill like chaos storm ain’t big enough to really alter your output in a fight since most fights simply don’t last long enough (pvp/roaming). Sure it has a lot of potency, but you need opponents to make mistakes to get enough of it. Again: that’s their fault for not understanding the mechanic, not a class related balance issue.

Slow Stacking

That’s a big surprise, since meta seems to be GS and spatial surge with a full crit build (assasins) will cause it to perma stack. Yes it’s fine as it is for other weapon sets, but this….ouch. An idea to fix the spatial issue: Give it an icd of 2.5 or even 3 seconds per target. It’s technically possible since it’s the same you’ve done with Ineptitude which is in a perfect place.

Leaves me with 3 questions:

-any chance you can fix/put a date on when the fix comes for Duelist Discipline trait to properly increase the bleed chance of iduelist aswell? For a condi build that one is really important (8 bleeds vs 11 bleeds per unload is a decent dps increase)
-same question for sw4 block not spawning a clone while wielding a scepter as main hand? It’s making a double block build non viable now.
-A more general question: We know skills reset with Continuum shift to allow for double use. What never was made clear is how it effects skills that are trait related (idefender (mental defense)/signet of inspiration on phantasm cast come to mind). if those trigger while under continuum shift, will they come out of cd instantly after continuum shift ends like normal skills?

I don’t think it’s OP, but it is a kitten you don’t want to handle without gloves.

If we’re talking about chronomancer you have to split the debate up into several parts:

Part 1: Weapon.
Shield: It’s new so people don’t know what to expect. That same goes for reaper, dragonhunter, tempest so that’s an even playfield. We can judge it based on our other off hands. From that perspective I’d say it’s in a good place:

Shield 4: It’s a double block, with below average damage (compared to 5 torment stacks from sc2 and 1k dmg from sw4), so the double block compensates for that. The phantasm it spawns is average for the same reason: Better utility use then most other phantasms, but a lot lower on damage. Perfect tradeoff for those looking for more support.

Shield 5: Tricky to judge. A stunfield that you can pop close range is hard to counter, then again if you compare it to magic bullet from close range or paralyse from thieves it’s not that dissimlar. Decent balance again.

F5: it has a way to long aftercast, making you lose like the first second, which is hard to take. The use itself ain’t bad, but timing is crucial. Fits the mesmer in general. The scare effect and counterplay will evolve sooni enough.

Wells:

Personally I dislike them. They are to easy to spot and 3 of the 5 take to long to cast. I did some build testing with a friendly reaper and he could avoid all wells to easy or at least before they hit their end effect even with stuns traited. (stun when you daze)

Now the harder part: Traits
Minors: Long overdue, but at long last we got a passive speedboost. Other then that nothing special.

Majors: Here is where it becomes interesting.
-The 2 uses on phantasms is awesome. It no longer punishes phantasm builds. The daze prevents a mega burst so that change works really well.
-Slow, slow, slow……the thing us mesmers used to be taunted with (lacking speed), became our taunt to others. just perfect….but is it OP?
Lost time needs a icd probably. You can easily make a perm crit build, which with GS means you can have it up always. And icd of 4 seconds (same as reapers’ chill) would be nice. Let’s face it: being chilled or slowed is about equally effective (and you want both of them cleansed asap), so I see no need to deal with them differently.

-alacrity: This one is a bit nasty to judge. If people ignore your avengers you can get it up permanently, shame on them in my opinion for ignoring them (or simply ignorance). In itself I don’t consider it gamebreaking at all. Just like you can compare chill to slow, you can compare quickness to alacrity. What could be a minor issue is it working on the F1, 2, 3 &4 cooldowns as well. It might need to change into just the skills/utilities.

Mesmer:
-Sword 4 (off-hand block) doesn’t spawn a clone with a scepter equipped as main hand
-Duelist Discipline: No additional bleeds for the duelist when traited, works fine as far as cd reduction and bleed for the mesmer itself is involved.

(sidenote: Thanks for fixing the scepter <3)

Quick bump in this topic to keep it up in the list: Still no fixes so far, nor a dev reply that they’ve taken note (like has been done on other class bug topics). Please guys help mesmers function as intended

Any chance one of the Devs can sticky this topic or something and can give us any notification that mesmer bugs are being looked into at all?

All other bug topics from other classes had a dev reply, but no comments at all on mesmer bugs, while there are plenty.

A nasty one found:

In wvw: If you switch an utility after blinking the utility goes on the cooldown for the cd time of the utility it replaces.

Menders purity doesn’t trigger when you dodge after casting a traited mirror until the reflect wears off. (triggers to late, not at the end of the cast)

Josh Davis.6015:

Wanted to clear something up:

Power Block had its damage unintentionally increased with the 6/23 release. The reduction wasn’t a “nerf” – it was a bug fix. It still does the same damage it did before the 6/23 release.

As for Maimed, we wanted to address it before the build went out but we ran out of time. I agree that it would have been better to have adjusted it before you guys got your hands on the new build, but there just wasn’t time. Sorry about this.

For staff cd trait – conditional recharge is something new we’re trying out. The high cd reduction uptime that we were seeing right out of the gate wasn’t something we felt comfortable with. If it feels really weak after this we’ll come back to it and look at it again.

Anyways, as Peters said, we’re keeping a really close eye on everything right now and things will definitely continue to shift as we discover and evaluate how things take shape across the game.

Hope that addresses a few of your questions.

Night!

thanks for the reply Josh, clears some concerns up. Any chance you can give us a sneak towards bugfixes on traits not working as intended which would benefit us, instead of lower our damage down? (Duelist’s Discipline, Malicious Sorcery come to mind)

1 stack/torment instead of 2/illusion shattered.

Wasn’t working properly since patch hit actually. Sharpening images and the duelist trait don’t stack as they should.

MtD was kinda OP. You could get so many torment stacks up so fast. however we ain’t the only class with issues like that.
-They took confusing combatants for a more power minded bonus we already had easy access to.
-Bleeds from the Duelist trait ain’t even working at all now (at least that’s better then overwriting the minor)

Simple thing I can’t understand is why they nerf 1 trait, not fixing the other and ignoring other classes having the same balance issues. It’s not like mesmers have been generally considered overpowered since the original confusion nerf.

Iduelist traited ain’t getting the benefits from sharper images (with perm crit should be more bleeds then untraited (8+(33%*2*8hits)~12, but gets 4 or 6), however untraited gets more (8 as intended))

Make a 100% crit build and test it out: 1 with the pistol trait, 1 without. You’ll see you cause less bleeds when traited

If you trait for Pistol (Duelist’s discipline) it overwrites the minor: Sharper images.

Sharper images (bleed on crit by illusions) doesn’t trigger, instead only giving the 33% chance to cause 2 bleeds on crit from Duelist’s discipline, thereby significantly hurting iduelist.

As the title says: If you trait for pistol IDuelist should get both the weapon trait (33% chance on 2bleed on crit) and the minor: illusions cause bleed on crit. However: If you trait it it only triggers the pistol trait, thereby lowering the amount of bleedstacks iduelist puts on a target.

Shifu.4321:

This is the one big complaint I have with the expac. I don’t give a crap if new players get the core game for free, but an additional slot for upgraders would go a long way in showing Anet’s appreciation for their long time users.

Yup that’s my feeling exactly. Nightfall/Factions etc had the exact same thing (in fact gave you 2 additional slots, 1 for each new profession).

Just want to be sure I understand this correctly: If you buy HoT you don’t get a new char slot to make a revenant? On the deluxe edition it says you get an additional, but that doesn’t neccesary mean you don’t get any for the normal edition.

If it doesn’t give a char that’s a major step back from gw1 and personally feels like a knife in the back for the loyal community that’s been around for over 10 years now. It’s nice that you guys want to make the step low for newcommers to come in, however for those already investing a lot of time/money (gemstore) in game we should at least expect something to make the price worth it.

Strange question probably, but I want to switch the skin of my legendary (minstrel) to Anomaly. However I know there was a bug in the past that made the legendary exotic again and stats unselectable. Does anyone know for sure if the legendary will keep it’s specialties (select stats/max weapon damage) and if i can reverse that back later on by putting the original skin back on it again?

First suggestion:

As we are all well aware zerk has been the meta for ages, leaving condi builds far behind. sinister was a good attempt to make condition builds more viable, however a lot of stuff still scales primary on power. Therefore I’d like to suggest a proper condition gear replacement for zerk:

Power (main), Precision, Condition damage. So simply convert ferocity 1 on 1 with condition damage.

Sure it ain’t much different from rampager at a first glimpse, but so is assassins compared to beserker. more then sinister it would allow condition builds to still pack the full raw damage zerker is so loved for.

Second suggestion:

I know it’s been mentioned before, but: Create some armor (legendary?) so people can chose their stats at will outside of combat.

For people that like to try several builds out and use a lot of variations like myself, ascended is so expensive that the options to use variations are limited without a noticeable difference by going 1 step back to exotic levels. If you want to compare builds and build effectiveness, you got to compare apples to apples afterall. Ascended jewelry are easy and cheap to get,while weapons are covered by legendaries with their selectable stats. I doubt many would mind a steep price for some kind of special armor that would give them the same creative freedom to explore every option possible for their class. In turn that would potentially lead to a lot more variation.

Now with such nerf to celestial gear, it should become real all stat equipment, witch mean it should also include:
- 1% boon duration
- 1% condition duration
+ 1% condition duration
+1% condition damage

that would add 6% for a full armor set.
Not too strong, but at least its something !

what are your toughts ?

This would bring the gear in a real tricky situation. Don’t forget: you got 6 pieces of armor + 6 types of jewelry + 2 weapons (or a two-handed)+ 6 divinity runes. Since gw2 works with rounded numbers you’d end up with at least 1% on each item. That’s not a 6% increase on those stats, but a 20% increase on those stats.
-20 condition duration on self(outrageous)
+20% boon duration (high)
+20% condition duration (average-high)
Condition damage is already on the gear and is getting the same stat boost the other stats will get, so that won’t be an option to begin with.

Conclusion in my opinion: That has overpowered written all over the place.

On EHP, there’s also that an Elementalist will get a higher EHP benefit from it than a Mesmer as you have listed in your link, but this probably won’t push beyond a 4% increase at a rough guess.

Percentage wise it should stay the same actually, since the increase is relative compared to soldiers gear. An elementalist with soldiers gear would have a lower ehp then a mesmer with the same gear due to the formula that’s being used: T*HP. Simple reason being the higher base health pool of a mesmer, since T stays the same for both classes.

Have you guys seen Ele full Cele Ascended builds? They are rather broken as it is and you want them to have a BIGGER buff?

Not at all actually. What we are trying to achieve here is to do what the devs themselves said was the intention: Changing the zerk meta, where celestial has become an unwanted casualty that they try to compensate with the boost. The suggestion I made if you look at the numbers won’t boost celestial at all, it makes the direct damage drop so small that it stays within the same boundries as it sits now, but in the end if anything it is still a minor (barely noticeable) drop.

I really think leaving out the additional support potential of Healing Power, as well as the extra damage provided by the Condition Damage, is a non-trivial problem. I understand it is called out in “the tricky part” section, but just because it’s difficult to quantify doesn’t mean that the set should be balanced solely around the Power/Survival aspect of the gear.

Reason I left it out is actually pretty simple.
Healing power scales differently for different skills. Since all classes can use the gear they are effected a bit different. However if you want a fixed number to get an idea of the impact is has: the effect this change has on regeneration is the same for all:
From gear now: 130+469*.125=188.6hp/second
With the proposed boost: 0.125*28=3.5 hp/second for a total of 192.12 .
With the change as I’m suggesting it’s 0.125*.46=5.75 hp/second for a total of 194.4
% wise? An 1.8% increase with the proposed change. 3% increase with my version. Nothing gamebreaking is it? To put it in perspective: in a 20 second fight that’s 70hp healed.

Condition damage has the same abysmal impact. Burning and fear got the highest multiplier with 25%. With the proposed change that’s 7 damage on top of the 445 we have from the gear now. that’s a 1.5% increase and barely noticeable.

What I tried to show with the comparison to soldiers gear in my second post is showing that even with condition damage getting this 6% boost our relative dps still drops more. The need for 1.5 more bleedstacks to match the dps proves that beyond a doubt.

Okay, cool. Thanks for adding those. I’ll probably play with your numbers once I’ve slept; I want to check a few things. In particular:
1. How Celestial affects specs without 30/30 power/prec/crit
2. EHP for different classes
3. Damage loss without compensation

Let me help you there a bit:
1.The reduction as I mentioned is less, since the only effect the nerf has is lowering crit damage. Spending less in the crit trait lowers the amount of time you crit and logically also lowers the effect it has. When taking no power/crit traits at all http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJArKEBI9AAAAo0DAAAAA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w (best case scenario)this is the math:
Offensive:
Old:1385*1000/2800=494.64.
26% crit chance, 2.11% crit damage multiplier.
-0.26*2.11*494.64+494.64*0.74=637.39

New: 1413 power * 1000 weapon damage/2800=504.64. 28% critchance ((1413-822)/21), crit damage multiplier1.83 (497/15+1.5).
- 0.28*1.83*504.64+0.72*504.64=621.9

damage new compared to old: (621.9/637.39)*100%=97.57% so a nerf of 2.43% still.

My proposal:
1431*1000/2800=511.07 29% crit chance, 1.84 crit damage multiplier.
0.29*511.07*1.84+511.07*.71=635.56

Proposal nerf compared to old:(635.56/637.39)*100%=99.71% or a barely noticeable 0.29%

Every real life scenario will obviously fit in between this best case and the worst case scenario mentioned in my first 2 posts.

2.: That’s a different question and one I’m not going to try to cover. EHP is a nasty one due to the decreasing effects of additional toughness the higher your armor rating is. Therefore I took light armor here, since those are the ones having the highest benefit of each additional point in Toughness. The ehp increase with the statsboost will be slightly less for medium or heavy classes.

3. both extremes are covered in the links above. Simply convert crit damage to ferocity, the rest stays the same as in the builds linked.

Hope this helps

Ah my bad. I c/p the math from my first post in the other topic. I’ll add it to the start post.

1. Crit chance is rounded down, according to wiki "Critical Chance = round down((precision – 822) / 21) " (which can easily be confirmed in game yourself to be correct).
2.Go to a buildcalculator, throw in full celestial stats with max zerk traits (power, precision line). See below.
3. Based on the same as mentioned above, so no assumptions.

" I used full zerk traits http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJArKEBI9AAAAo0DAAAAA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w (so max power, precision line) to get the biggest effect possible. Afterall: Only crit damage is effected so you need to crit for it to have any effect at all. No runes are taken since those will have the same effect on all gears anyways." added to the start post.

Cause of the danger the math got lost here: please read and if you can be so kind respond to this topic https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Celestial-stat-compensation-mistake/first#post3792040.

Celestial can easily be made in such way that it’s keeping it’s balance compared to other gears. It only takes a minor tweak.

Please read my second post also. The idea behind it isn’t bad. They just took the 6% based on the wrong stat to compensate for the unintended damage done to celestial. It’s easy to fix.

Soldiers gear as we all know is not touched by this change. DPS before and after this patch is the same as it was before as is EHP. Using the same figures as I used above this gives:

Soldiers:
Offensive: 2303*1000/2800=822.5
dps: 822.5*1.5*.18+822.5*.82=896.53

Defensive:2628*22532=5921.4

So what is so bad about this?

Celestial (old) vs Soldiers:
Offensive: 949.69 vs 896.53, dps of celestial is 5.9% higher
Defensive: 4650 vs 5921, ehp of soldiers gear is 27% higher

Celestial (new)vs Soldiers:
Offensive: 876.45 vs 896.53, dps of Soldiers(!) is 2.29% higher
Defensive: 4772.38 vs 5921, ehp of soldiers is 24% higher.

Celestial took a whooping 8.19% dps dive for a gain of 3% ehp….making it worse: Soldiers bests Celestial in both defense and offense (conditions arguable as mentioned above). It’s not even a choice anymore, since there is no trade-off of offense vs defense.

The prospect of knights defensively is a bit better due to the hp on celestial, but even knights dps matches celestial with this patch, making celestial the lowest rank dps gear that is also below average defensively.

Solution: How to keep celestial where it’s at? Given that ferocity is becoming a secondary stat taking 6% of those as an increase would lead to this:

745*0.06%+469=513.7 statpoints. Rounding it of to 514 for ease. a 46 increase over the current full celestial set. Seems like a lot right? Well lets see how it plays out:

Offense: 1731*1000/2800=618.21
Critchance: 43%
Critical damage multiplier: 2.04
leads to>>>>dps:894.67 (again: raw damage, no conditions)

Defensive: 2398*2023.2/10000=4851.63

Compared to soldiers:
Offensive: 894.67 vs 896.53, a 0.2% higher dps for soldiers
Defensive: 4851.63 vs 5921, a 22% higher ehp for soldier.

However: This gives a margin where crit traits/sigils, healing power and conditions can come into play.

Additional prove
The idea is to balance gears out compared to eachother. To do so you’d want the difference in defense to be comparable to the difference in offense.

-Old situation: To counter for the 27% better defense you need to deal 1138.59 dps. 1138.59-949.69=188.9 a bleed now deals 23.45 damage more, which leads to 8 bleedstacks

-My proposition: to get a 22% better offense to match for the 22% better defense of soldiers you’d need 896.53*1.22=1094 dps. a bleed deals 25.7 damage more the a bleed on soldiers, so that’s 8 bleedstacks on top of the base celestial dps.

-6% as suggested now: to counter for the 24% better defense you need to deal 1111.69 dps . (1111.68-876.45)/24.85(damage of 1 bleedstack)=9.46 bleedstacks. As you can tell in contrary to what I proposed above the dps loss is equall to 1.5 bleeds put on the target.

I hope you guys will read this. I’ll be happy to do some more maths if needed, but please look into this. You guys said the nerf to celestial was unintended, this is the easiest way to fix it instantly without touching the nerf to zerk and without unwillingly hurting celestial players.

Dear Devs, I hope you’ll read this post since there’s something in that change that doesn’t play out right. In doing the maths on the other topic about this subject I ran into an issue with the 6% as was used to compensate the loss in crit damage.

The changes:
-full celestial with the 6% boost will give 497 stats on all gear (up from 469 now).
-Trait lines will change also, so 30% crit damage will become 300 ferocity=20 crit damage.

Offensive:

To ease the calculations I used full zerk traits http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJArKEBI9AAAAo0DAAAAA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w (so max power, precision line) to get the biggest effect possible. Afterall: Only crit damage is effected so you need to crit for it to have any effect at all. No runes are taken since those will have the same effect on all gears anyways.

-797 ferocity/15=53.13 crit damage vs the 91 that same set gives now. However you can’t translate that 1 on 1, since with full celestial you don’t crit all the time right?
-Since precision increases by 28, that has an effect on crit chance also: 42% (rounded down from 42.43) vs 41%
-Power also has an effect for direct damage: 28 increase so 1713 power.

So how will dps change? Let’s use a target with 2800 armor (heavy target golem).
Tooltip damage = (average weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (level-based Armor value)

Old situation: 1685*1000*/2800=601.79
41% crit chance with 2.41 crit damage multiplier: so 0.41*2.41*601.79+0.59*601.79=949.69

New situation: 1713*1000/2800=611.79
42% crit chance with 2.03 crit damage: 0.42*611.79*2.03+0.58*611.79=876.45

Result being: 876.45/949.69= a 7.71% loss in dps. a whooping 2.29% less then zerkers lose, but then again 7.71 loss to any gear not having crit damage on it. So what do we gain on them?

Defensive(EHP):

Though not a perfect way it is a common practice to use this formula EHP=HP*Armor/10000
Needless to say it ignores healing and condition damage.
EHP old: 4650.37
EHP new:4772.38
a 2.6% increase in Effective Hit Points.

The tricky part:

Healing power and Condition damage. Given the way both works it’s almost impossible to make a proper calculation here. Various conditions give different % increases and healing power effects vary on the skill you use. Also there are traits that trigger on crit, which (though minor) are effected by the crit chance increase aswell.

Conclusion:
All in all one could argue that given the most zerk-ish version (traits) of a celestial build the change leads to a guaranteed:

-2.6% increase in EHP, compared to all other gear types
-A 7.71% decrease in direct damage compared to all gears that got no crit damage at all
-A 2.29% increase in dps compared to gears with crit damage
+a skill depending increase in condition damage and healing power.

One thing I should note: The less you got invested in the traits that give crit chance/crit damage the lesser the cons will become, while keeping the positive stat increases. I seriously doubt everybody using full celestial is specced with full zerk traits. The above is the least likely and the biggest casualty of this change. The reality will be less worse.

Edit:
I want to add 1 thing to this after some consideration and motivate why the 6% raw stats boost is a flaw in the way the devs thought about this:

-Where we were at before this change: secondary stats give 745 stat points putting celestial at 62.95% ((469/745)100%) on all stats.
-Where we will be after this: (497/745)100%=66.71%

The effective compensation we are getting therefore isn’ t 6%, but only 3.76%. To make it a proper 6% statsboost and keep the position of celestial intact it should be an increase of 46 points (9% on celestial stats) for the full set or 6% of the secondary stat for other gears. I’ll show it in the next post

Since we got to compare apples to apples and I wanted to do the complete math anyways: Lets go into the math to see how it all play out shall we?

First traits: I used full zerk traits http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJArKEBI9AAAAo0DAAAAA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w (so max power, precision line) to get the biggest effect possible. Afterall: Only crit damage is effected so you need to crit for it to have any effect at all. No runes are taken since those are unaffected by the imminent changed they’ll be making to runes and will have the same effect on all gears anyways.

The math then:
-full celestial with the 6% boost will give 497 stats on all gear (up from 469 now).
-Trait lines will change also, so 30% crit damage will become 300 ferocity=20 crit damage.

Offensive:
-797 ferocity/15=53.13 crit damage vs the 91 that same set gives now. However you can’t translate that 1 on 1, since with full celestial you don’t crit all the time right?
-Since precision increases by 28, that has an effect on crit chance also: 42% (rounded down from 42.43) vs 41%
-Power also has an effect for direct damage: 28 increase so 1713 power.

So how will dps change? Let’s use a target with 2800 armor (heavy target golem).
Tooltip damage = (average weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (level-based Armor value)

Old situation: 1685*1000*/2800=601.79
41% crit chance with 2.41 crit damage multiplier: so 0.41*2.41*601.79+0.59*601.79=949.69

New situation: 1713*1000/2800=611.79
42% crit chance with 2.03 crit damage: 0.42*611.79*2.03+0.58*611.79=876.45

Result being: 876.45/949.69= a 7.71% loss in dps. a whooping 2.29% less then zerkers lose, but then again 7.71 loss to any gear not having crit damage on it. So what do we gain on them?

Defensive(EHP):

Though not a perfect way it is a common practice to use this formula EHP=HP*Armor/10000
Needless to say it ignores healing and condition damage.
EHP old: 4650.37
EHP new:4772.38
a 2.6% increase in EHP.

The tricky part:

Healing power and Condition damage. Given the way both works it’s almost impossible to make a proper calculation here. Various conditions give different % increases and healing power effects vary on the skill you use. Also there are traits that trigger on crit, which (though minor) are effected by the crit chance increase aswell.

Conclusion:
All in all one could argue that given the most zerk-ish version (traits) of a celestial build the change leads to a guaranteed:

-2.6% increase in EHP, compared to all other gear types
-A 7.71% decrease in direct damage compared to all gears that got no crit damage at all
-A 2.29% increase in dps compared to gears with crit damage
+a skill depending increase in condition damage and healing power.

Again: I’d have wanted it to be a bit higher myself since pending on what class and build you use it can be a lot. On the other hand: The less you got invested in the traits that give crit chance/crit damage the lesser the cons will become, while keeping the positive stat increases. I seriously doubt everybody using full celestial is specced with full zerk traits. The above is the least likely and the biggest casualty of this change. The reality will be less worse.

Edit:
I want to add 1 thing to this after some consideration and motivate why the 6% raw stats boost is a flaw in the way the devs thought about this:

-Where we were at before this change: secondary stats give 745 stat points putting celestial at 62.95% ((469/745)100%) on all stats.
-Where we will be after this: (497/745)100%=66.71%

The effective compensation we are getting therefore isn’ t 6%, but only 3.76%. To make it a proper 6% statsboost and keep the position of celestial intact it should be an increase of 44 points (9% on celestial stats) for the full set or 6% of the secondary stat for other gears.

I did the math for myself: Full celestial (incl back) with full zerk traits and ruby orbs will be hit for 8.2% compared to 9.81% for full zerk with the same traits and orbs. Do notice: that’s direct damage. In general we get 1.6% closer in direct damage to zerk + our condition damage, healing power, and ehp will get 6% closer to the other sets aswell.

You can’t compare pure dps effects if you’re using gear which sits in the middle of it all and ignore the stats increase towards the other parts celestial gear shines in. Yes we lose some direct damage to pvt, yet gain condi damage, critchance (a bit under 2%, not much I know) which pending on class/playstyle compensates and gain survivability. Am I 100% happy with the change? No I’d have liked a 10% increase to fully compensate on other area’s. However from a balance point of view it’s not nearly as bad as it seems at first glance.

Did some calculations myself compared to zerk: the nerf will hit us for 8.2% on direct damage, which will put us closer to zerk then it is now.

Blog post answered it: " Celestial gear, which provides a moderate boost to all stats rather than a significant bonus to a few stats, will be hit harder by these changes compared to other gear, since it provided relatively high critical damage values compared to other stats given out. To compensate, we’re increasing the overall effectiveness of Celestial gear by improving all stats by 6% of their current values."

Awesome

Great to allow more flexibility in builds on the fly. It was one of the beauties gw1 had and makes life much more easier for players loving wvw, pve and dungeons, since different situations asks for different builds.

that being said: Any chance to also introduce templates like gw1 had so you can not only change on the fly, but also can get it as you like instantly?

I’ve been looking for that, but haven’t been able to find a dev post stating that. Only that they would look into it. Could you link the post?

First of all: I realize that gw1 was much more a rpg then a mmo, while gw2 is more mmo then a rpg. It’s not comparing apples to apples. However I’ve been discussing it with some of my old gw1 buddies on a number on occasions and some stuff from gw1 could have a place here.

In gw1 you had hubs and a lot of zones. Some high end zones however had no hubs at all, giving players a feeling they could explore and get lost doing so. Several players loved farming and exploring challenging regions where a big death-penalty would mean go back and start over. Some examples:
-Farming the icy dragon sword in the imp cave
-Going on a killing spree from droknar’s forge to beacon’s perch or worse: the other way around (yes some actually tried)
-Going up to the crystal desort from elona (and no not cheating for directions by using wiki/maps)
-Doing the Villany of Galrath quest from where you pick it up (LA) instead of going to TOA.
-Sorrow’s Furnace
-DoA
and last but not least:
-Farming for the totem axe in magus falls, all 55hp monks loved to have.

The latter is what got me thinking, given the awakening of the " new" dragon at the end of the LS. It’s obvious the direction we are moving to now is the same direction magus falls used to be, which is where gw2 comes in:

Yes we got high end zones here, but nowhere in game are you ever far from the location you died, meaning there is no penalty at all to going down, no true exploring where a wrong turn can make you run around in circles before you know it. Gw2 is much, much more forgiving then gw1 ever was. You die? spent 3silver and pick it up where you left. Gw1: you die, you get a death penalty. Die to often and restart from 0.

My suggestion/request would therefore be: If you are really taking the LS towards the Maguuma Jungle/Magus falls: Give us these challenging zones. Zones where dropping death will have consequences by having much, much lesser waypoints available (or perhaps just 1 for an entire zone). For example reintroduce Magus Falls like it was: a region where you can get lost with no towns/camps everywhere on the map.

Just like the ice-imp cave there was no need for anyone to clear it out. however for those few that loved it, it was worth the effort to get their hands on a rare and highly wanted skin. a win-win for many type of players: explorers, farmers, more hardcore pve players or one time thrill seekers.

Since the addition of ascended accessories/rings/trinkets/amulets Jewelcrafting is pretty much a dead profession. While other professions allows you to make the best (ascended) items one can find in game, jewelcrafting still only goes to second best (exotic), with all the stuff " just" to be found in rare chests/fractals/laurels making it kind of hard to fully equip alts.

Are there any concrete planned updates to allow crafting of those items by jewelcrafting?

It’s been a bunch of weeks since this was brought up, but with the critical-ferocity change and the proposed (max)10% nerf in dps for full beserk players Celestial will by far been hit the hardest. At that point a Dev said it would be looked at how to " fix" this, but after that there has been no update at all at how it stands.

A short summary:
-mf was removed, nothing additional was given to celestial gear to compensate it.
-celestial has a relatively high crit damage, however a dev said all stats would be made the same. This would lead to ferocity being much lower then on beserker and other gears, leading to a much bigger then 10% impact in dps reduction for celestial.
-Celestial is the armor that has the highest time gate on it, due to the way quartz works.
-Many spent tons of gold/time on the ascended celestial armor/weapons

So I was hoping a Dev could clarify a bit on how it currently stands:

Q: Will Celestial still fit in the balance of gears as it does now? (~ the same as knight gear in raw dps)

A:-?

Q: If not will we get the possibility to change stats just like the old mf gear was allowed to change stats once?

A:-?

Q: Is there anything planned at all for Celestial stats on ascended gear or is that put on the long term?

A:-?