Guild Wars 2

nothelseth.4621:

To make it clear, frostballs current idea of mirage is the following

Krait runes for jaunt
ineptitude+blind on shatter
signet of midnight
axe

Jaunt on target, spam every single shatter, get the elite proc and get a massive condi spike. Playing this as a silly thief +1er

Cool in theory. In practice 1 well of eternity, 1 astral form, 1 leadership rune proc and all of your cds and burst is gone. Less effective than a thief by x100. Garbage in a teamfight. Inferior 1v1 to chrono, can’t hold a fight for its life, garbage 2v2, etc

Frostball has literally for years been the kid who always tries to refuse what everyone else does and do ‘’his own thing’’ and insist that it’s better. This is the person who plays the inspiration build with carrion and played bunker mesmer with the damage well.

Fantastic pvper, one of the best mesmers in the game by far but also someone who has historically ALWAYS been a contrarian who wants to be cool and stand out by never agreeing with what’s actually true.

Also, your build is bad lmao

Amen.

Link

Just sharing this Reddit topic here for visibility as it sums up a lot of the problems with Mirage better than I could, and hopefully leads to some positive buffs/changes to the specialisation between now and release.

Discuss.

They buffed traits/utilities/skills for power builds, which haven’t been seen in the meta since pre-HoT PU shatter. I’m not sure exactly what you’re taking issue with.

Wirriam.1859:

BeepBoopBap.2840:

Lol why do you all keep treating that as a serious win when we played:

2 warriors pre adrenal health buff
1 condi engi that had 4 hours play time on the class

I knew we shouldn’t have fought that day cuz all we would hear is kitten about it lol. I’m sure we are down to schedule a round 3 whenever though.

How is this still a thing, just move on cause literally nobody cares.

I’m not going to say you/the tRex in the video didn’t play well, rather to the contrary, but Kool does have a point in that the players/comp used by us (QQ) in that video were not anywhere near what we could put out in a serious GvG. I wasn’t present for those fights, but watching the video I immediately didn’t recognise two of the players/characters (ie. either some of our casual members, or long-time members on alts) — and I’ve been one of the long-running members of QQ for years — and anyone familiar with PvP could recognise the comp was mediocre. The fight was essentially Sneaky (support Ele) and Kool (glass Rev) vs. a good team of 5. No offense to the other QQ there, but those peasants shouldn’t have fought a GvG with that comp and none of our leaders/originals on if they were going to be bothered by having a recorded loss.

Perhaps the same applies to the tRex in the fights we won earlier, too.

Either way, I immediately knew that wasn’t a serious GvG because most of our “serious” members weren’t present, plus the double Warrior set-up.

A future GvG with both of our best players/teams on their mains would be fun, though. I’d like to see a 5v5 purely with our original members/leaders on their mains. Things certainly wouldn’t have been so easy if I were there on my Mes.

Maybe it’ll happen some day. Who knows. o/

EremiteAngel.9765:

I guess I am not the only one mistaking OP’s post as referring to QQ guild in BG.

That said, Jackums you are from QQ? Could you let me know if the QQ guild berserker I fought in the video below is a new berserker? I just want to know if I’m fighting a decent berserker in the video and whether I just did things right during the fight or was the berserker just new to the class and so not really a good gauge of my playing style.

The QQ berserker had like Exalted Legend title which is PvP season 2 Legendary division…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRig2--QokM

He’s easily one of the best active Warriors in the game right now (insofar as roaming/1v1), so he mustn’t have been paying much attention when he attacked you the first time, or he expected you to be an easy kill and got himself killed. If you fought him again or set up a 1v1, I imagine the fight would’ve played out differently.

I can give you his character name if you want to duel him some time.

Here’s his channel if you want to see some videos of him playing seriously:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtostTO5S9dq7JE4cDuYlkQ/videos

His main is an asura, so I wouldn’t take him too seriously on his human alt.

Waffle.3748:

Jackums.3496:

We’ve done GvG many times with other T1 guilds, and we’ve had a bunch of group fights with tRex whilst roaming. Whenever we’re asked to GvG, we do, and win majority of the time. Most guilds we come across will complain we’re dirty and can only gank, but when we offer to organize a fair GvG, they either don’t respond or turn it down.

But thank you. Harassing and killing is how we do. o/

EDIT: GvG with tRex a few months ago…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u1N3kq-Qk4

@OP: The best thing you can do vs griefing is to not respond or react. The players harassing you want a reaction from you. Ignore them. They lose.

No fair Jackums we won a set too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4U6R74P5Ds

But yeah I think that guy from DB is just a tad on the salty side. I dunno I had a good time when I ran into the thieves and such from QQ, they always go for the kill and it at least made running around interesting (as opposed to JQ at the time which was zzzzz).

Agreed with the ignore option, they’re fishing for the reaction and by not giving them anything they’re the ones left looking salty.

That you did! I wasn’t the one recording, so can’t speak for any of the footage, but I was the Asura Necro in those fights (FYI).

My main is Katerina, though. Pink hair. You might recognize. o/

Reaper Alim.4176:

Lol I find most QQ guild guys are pretty lackluster solo roamers. If you wipe one or two them once. They’ll just start blobbing you down with Scrapper, Mesmer, and 3 or 4 Thieves that stay in stealth untill one of their group mates gets in trouble and the next thing you know you have like 3 to 6 players with the QQ tag blowing you up. Most of us don’t even engage these fools anymore unless we also have 3 to 6 players.

I’ve only ran into 2 instances where I got to truly 1v1 players from this QQ guild. Each time they ended up with siege on their face. The other times well, they just blob me down with superior numbers and not superior skill. I mean that’s just what their server as a whole does.

But I guess a win is a win no matter how you got that win. So you just have to learn if you are solo roaming, to avoid anybody with QQ tag above their heads. They will %99 of times will just lure you into a ambush to blow you up. Also if you do manage to catch one of them by themselves, 1v1 them and win, do not hesitate to siege finish them.

If you’re bothered by losing outnumbered and want to 1v1 any of us, whisper us and we’ll oblige. We have some of the best 1v1 Thief/Mesmer roamers in the game right now (plus a Warrior and Engi or two), so I wouldn’t get your hopes up for winning those fights, but we’re always happy to accept any challenges. All you have to do is ask.

perseco.8321:

When I fought QQ in T1, they were doing one of the primary duties that roamers are supposed to do in WvW: harass and kill (or delay) enemies running back to other fights after dying. And they were really good at it… I would like to see them fight against some of Mag/DR’s smaller groups like tRex, PMS, vT, etc… those would be some great fights to watch.

We’ve done GvG many times with other T1 guilds, and we’ve had a bunch of group fights with tRex whilst roaming. Whenever we’re asked to GvG, we do, and win majority of the time. Most guilds we come across will complain we’re dirty and can only gank, but when we offer to organize a fair GvG, they either don’t respond or turn it down.

But thank you. Harassing and killing is how we do. o/

EDIT: GvG with tRex a few months ago…

@OP: The best thing you can do vs griefing is to not respond or react. The players harassing you want a reaction from you. Ignore them. They lose.

They know people want the original borderlands back, they just don’t want to do it because it means admitting they did something wrong by replacing them to begin with.

Wolfey.3407:

Rome.7124:

Wolfey.3407:

Good:
Chrono
Revenant/ Herald

haha, very funny…

Care to elaborate on which one if not both and why?

If you mean Chrono getting ganked to hell by Thieves thats a valid point but getting countered hard by 1 class does not make it a useless class.

It doesn’t? Perhaps you missed the collective years whereby Mesmer (and every other zerk spec save Mediguard) wasn’t in the meta for the fact that Thief hard-countered it.

TLDR I beg to differ. One class hard-countering another so heavily is precisely enough to make it “useless” by meta standards, particularly after the recent excessive Mesmer nerfs in conjunction with the excessive Thief buffs. But at least Mesmer can still Portal bot..

It’s pathetic that this is even necessary.

Elementalist has been stacking heavy party-wide boons (25 might, anyone?) for years, but the moment Ranger can do this purely on themselves/their pets, it’s heresy.

The builds that people are waving around that have high protection/quickness uptime sacrifice a ton of damage in the traits they’re forced to take.

The only “extreme” or obvious counters, IMO, are Thief > Mesmer, and Necro > Engi. It depends on build (condi or power, etc.) but generally speaking that tends to hold true.

lol, Mesmer does not counter D/D Ele.

The issue is the celestial amulet. Nerf that and then take a look at individual classes.

Yes, it needs a nerf. As does Consume Plasma.

No. Warriors need a nerf to mobility, not a buff.

Engineer and Ranger.

Every profession has faceroll builds, but the Engineer and Ranger in general I find have to work the most to succeed across their variety of specs when relying on class mechanics.

Elementalist has a lot of button mashing but it’s such a forgiving profession due to high boon up-time and a lot of healing access, and mobility for kiting/disengaging.

Mesmer and Thief are both forgiving of mistakes due to stealth, and whilst they’re mechanically intense in short bursts, it’s not very consistently straining as we can simply stealth and essentially have a break to recollect ourselves before continuing.

Necro is pretty straightforward, despite lacking mobility and CC resistance. The profession is still generally quite simple in terms of mechanics.

Guardian is simple.

And lastly, lol Warriors.

It’s about time ANet’s pet was forced to put some thought into their mashing without relying on the passive healing/cleansing of Healing Signet and Cleansing Ire, running around spamming burst skills and cycling through their carry-me-stances.

Well done, ANet. Took you long enough.

It’s about time Warrior had something to fear.

God forbid you can’t comfortably run into any 1v1 without some forethought.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Steal
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Strike
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flashing_Blade
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention
Etc, etc.

Please stop.

Except Mesmers don’t have even half the access to stealth that Thieves do.

Mesmers also aren’t in the top few tPvP professions.

Mesmers also aren’t the biggest griefing profession in WvW.

Mesmers also…

I think you get the idea. Apples and oranges.

NinjaEd.3946:

Jackums.3496:

a t s e.9614:

Thief counters spvp meta mesmers because they are built to deal damage only with some group utilities.

If the mesmers uses CI/PU condi or a more defensive build , then its pretty easy for them to kill a thief.

Hardly. Thieves just counter that survivability by running 6 in SA and having superior sustainability with better burst. As a Mesmer main with a Thief as my main alt, there’s literally no Mesmer build that a Thief can’t counter with a superior spec. Condi PU is the closest you have, and a patient SA Thief will still win that battle of attrition.

Or you can just run S/D and counter everything in one spec.

Countering S/D is all about playing into their evade frames, and letting them spam them. The after cast is unavoidable, and locking a s/d thief for only a few seconds is often enough to kill them or send them on their way to hiding.

I know, I main S/D on my Thief.

You’re under-estimating the damage output of the set in combination with its evades. As a Mesmer, you have to put in twice the effort just to get off a well-timed interrupt (which conveniently is more difficult when the Thief has easy access to Consume Plasma), whereas the Thief needs only use a single stun-break or evade to counter the entirety of your damage, and then return with 4-6k auto attacks and a 5k CnD.

The only profession/build that I have difficulty fighting on my S/D Thief is Terror Necro and condi Engi. The rare skilled P/D Thief can be an issue, too.

Eviscerate is not the problem. The Warrior having everything (high passive defense, cleanse, hard immunities, passive healing, damage output, and mobility) is the problem. Eviscerate just seems bad when you combine it with all of that.

Bhawb.7408:

Jackums.3496:

6 seconds on my Necro.

Show me the 6 second fear in game. Tooltips are notoriously awful, especially about condition durations.

Tested and this is the case. The tool-tip shows the correct duration calculation without the cap, though the 4-second cap still applies.

a t s e.9614:

Thief counters spvp meta mesmers because they are built to deal damage only with some group utilities.

If the mesmers uses CI/PU condi or a more defensive build , then its pretty easy for them to kill a thief.

Hardly. Thieves just counter that survivability by running 6 in SA and having superior sustainability with better burst. As a Mesmer main with a Thief as my main alt, there’s literally no Mesmer build that a Thief can’t counter with a superior spec. Condi PU is the closest you have, and a patient SA Thief will still win that battle of attrition.

Or you can just run S/D and counter everything in one spec.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

a t s e.9614:

Roe.3679:

a t s e.9614:

Yea sure a random proc that fears you for 5 seconds has counter play?? Am I supposed to waste my dodges whenever I engage a necro even if his not attacking me?

I never get over people hyperbolizing fear durations. Reaper’s protection is a 2 second proc.

I saw in another thread a guy said he was fear chain spammed for 10 seconds. Which it caps at 5 seconds.

Also corrupt boon already misses a lot. If you give it an animation it’ll need a cooldown or efficacy buff.

Its not 2 seconds with the trait that increases fear duration. And if the necro has nightmare runes then its even more than 5 sec fear.

Tell me, how can a 2 second fear, which obeys the +100% duration cap that ALL CONDITIONS HAVE, get to be 5 seconds?

6 seconds on my Necro.

vincecontix.1264:

Mesmer was and still is the best dueling class nothing has changed in that regard.

P/D Condi Thief beats any Mesmer spec.

@OP: Thief > Mesmer > everything else.

No. Warriors are over-powered.

Guardians are balanced.

Consume Plasma, for one, needs to be nerfed. Not just because Thieves counter Mesmers, but because in general it’s too powerful of a Steal ability.

Domzz.1260:

How about Necromancer in all of these points compared to Elementalist?

Ele > Necro in every category, though the Necro is still at least viable for all listed game types, but if you want to roam you’ll need a group because you’ll be a free kill solo.

Ele > Mesmer in every aspect listed aside from WvW roaming.

Simonoly.4352:

Well Inspiration is the Phantasm themed trait line, so that’s probably why it’s there. All the Minor traits in each line are actually grouped together well – it’s when you start looking at the major traits where things begin to get a little…..non-thematic.

Inspiration is not the phantasm themed trait line. It’s the healing/support trait line. Phantasm traits are spread throughout multiple trait lines, just as clone traits are.

8/13 of Inspiration’s major traits are purely defensive and centered around healing, condition cleansing, or projectile reflection. The rest are cooldown reduction traits or for increasing your own phantasms’ survivability. Phantasmal Strength does not fit the defensive focus of the Inspiration trait line whatsoever. It’s completely out of place.

Warrior mobility clearly needs a nerf, and that’s obvious to anyone that isn’t a Warrior or blind. The one profession in the game that has pretty much everything, and it can also out-run anything but a Thief. Warriors shouldn’t be that mobile purely based on them being a heavy profession and one of the two most durable professions in the game.

ANet need to decide whether they want the Warrior to be durable or mobile.

The Necro lacks mobility because it’s able to tank via Death Shroud, and it’s been stated by devs multiple times that that’s why they lack mobility.

Why does the Warrior get both? The only real opportunity you get to kill a Warrior is when all of their carry-me-immunities wear out, at which point they just run away anyway. There’s no risk. At least Thieves are vulnerable to counter burst.

The Warrior is the only profession in the game with no obvious weaknesses, and it’s in the top three professions across every game mode.

How that isn’t a glaringly obvious sign of imbalance to the devs, I have no idea.

Carighan.6758:

Cygnus.6903:

Cause that glass cannon risks everything, while you are in full dire. And give me that GC build that does 80% of your HP in 2 seconds, ty.

If you are in full dire, your conditions barely tickle targets.

The only condition build that gains any considerable advantage from precision is the Engi with Incendiary Powder. P/D Thieves, PU condi Mesmers, and S/S condi Warriors can go pure dire and are still the most powerful dueling specs in the game.

Also, since the Dhuumfire nerf, precision on a condi Necro is negligible. Just go dire and chain fear with Terror and stack conditions with Spite Signet and Corrupt Boon.

This is my one consistent annoyance with profession balance, aside from the myriad of neglected Mesmer bugs. You come into a game expecting the profession that’s advertized as an archer to actually be good at it. I keep trying to like my Ranger, but its underwhelming performance in 2/3 game modes continuously kills my motivation.

a t s e.9614:

Necromancer is crap at everything except Minion Master that is OK in 1v1 but still not viable against better players

I beg to differ. Power Necro is incredibly powerful 1v1. Necros suffer when it becomes a 1vx due to their susceptibility to CC. That’s not as much an issue in 1v1 scenarios, particularly with the amount of sustain a power spec has via Death Shroud.

They’re not used in high end tPvP because they’re so vulnerable in group fights.

Yes. Take my gems, ANet.

More than anything, the Mesmer is in need of long overdue bug fixes, such as iWarden, iElasticity, and reflect-traited Temporal Curtain.

That aside, some buffs to underwhelming weapon skills such as the scepter auto-attack chain, iMage, and Mind Stab are needed.

a t s e.9614:

No offense but mesmers don’t need any buffs. And I don’t see how it can be difficult to chain a combo or whatever you say. Summoning AI that attacks passively doesn’t look difficult to me.

Ignore this guy. He posts in every thread that mentions a Mesmer, complaining about it’s “OP passive” nature because he lost to a Mesmer on his Warrior due to L2P issues.

Guardian
Warrior
Elementalist

Take your pick.

Mesmer if you prefer PvP. They shine in duels and small skirmishes. They’re mediocre in PvE, and primarily utility (stealth, reflect, portal, etc.) in dungeons and large-scale WvW.

The Ele excels in dungeons and large-scale WvW due to their AoE DPS and combo fields.

The Guardian is pretty much useful, effective, and wanted in all game modes.

Shadowkiller.6725:

in case anyone missed it

http://captiongenerator.com/15374/Super-Secret-BG-War-Council-Meeting

This was the best thing to come out of this 2v1.

“Casuals.”

Distaste.4801:

They certainly do care and that’s exactly why they are doing what they are doing. JQ couldn’t win alone, if they could they would have and the same goes for TC. So they band together on the guise of “we just don’t want BG to win” because it increases their chances of winning. In reality they wanted to win and this is their best chance at it. If they were truly anti-BG it would have been a 2v1 from the start, but it wasn’t because no one knew how the first match would turn out. Once it was obvious who would win it was suddenly “We hate blackgate because mumble mumble”. But keep trying to mask the servers true motives…

It doesn’t even really who wins. Whether it’s JQ or TC it will have an asterisk next to it just like JQ/SOR stamping “buygate” on BG’s win last season. I honestly look forward to JQ or TC trying to brag about the season win. If this was 2 tier 2 servers coming together to beat BG it would be an awesome accomplishment, but as it is it’s just pathetic.

Perfectly accurate summary of this season.

I’m fine as long as I get enough tickets for a Mistforge weapon at the end of the season (which is guaranteed considering all that requires is at least 5th place), though I still find it amusing seeing forum warriors from JQ/TC acting all nonchalant, when clearly the whole alliance was born after both servers realized neither could 1v1 BG, and therefore banding together was the best way to increase their own chances of winning. It was as much a product of hurt ego as the BG whiners on the forums. All three servers are equally sore.

T raw.4658:

I have no problems wrecking 2 thieves at once on my mesmer.

maybe your build needs to be reworked

Maybe you need to fight better players.

Zord.6130:

Swish.2463:

Jelzouki.4128:

jportell.2197:

Evilek.5690:

Mesmer want next winning button ? Dont be silly

yes because mesmers are sooo over powered in tournament pvp…..

……

……….oh wait that’s right they aren’t.

Mesmers are awesome in tPvP; what do you mean? You want mesmers to be overpowered? There fine where they are; L2P issues detected.

At what point does a competitive team choose to bring a mesmer over another profession? What at current does a Mesmer offer other than Portal that another class does not provide more proficiency in?

Thiefs are brought for Bursts and Roaming to quickly finish fights.
Guards for bunkers and team support.
Warriors for Sustain and high CC upkeep.
Necros for Conditions and Fear.
Engies for their high sustain and CC’s.

Where does Mesmer fit in, in a world that all about staying inside a tiny circle and surviving.

A good player is always welcomed in a team, regardless of the class he plays.
Unless you are talking about VERY high end tpvp, in which case I can assure you that the competition in this game has pretty much disappeared one year ago, so it would be pointless to talk about it.
If you’re good, you will be useful. If you’re bad, you will be carried. If you’re bad, but are using a hambow/mm necro/condi engi/spirit ranger, then stop telling your mates that they are the reason because you lose everytime.

So, basically, you have no refute and decided to side-step the question?

The Mesmer is objectively inferior and lacking a place in tPvP. No-one looking to optimize their team’s efficiency is going to take a Mesmer over a Thief. This sugary, ignorance is bliss, “Anything can work if you put in the effort,” rubbish is exactly that.

Sure, it can work, but for twice the effort and half the reward. You can be the most passionate and dedicate player on your team, but an equally skilled Thief will still hard-counter you. You’ll still die to any equally skilled condi bunker. Etc, etc.

People that are against this particular Power Block proposition are justified in being so, but don’t try and justify it by saying the Mesmer is in a good place.

Carighan.6758:

lazycalm.5186:

Conditions were already OP, and what do they do? Nerf power builds instead.
I do understand the change from a PvE point of view, but me and a lot of players are concerned about WvW.
[…]

Am I missing something here? Please give some feedback regarding this.

The part missing is that this was neither about PvE nor WvW. This was about a relative stat-imbalance in that crit damage had two distinct issues compared to other stats:

• It scaled better, per-point.
• It had really weird itemization costs, sometimes items with very low budgets had 5%-7% of crit damage while items with higher budgets had 2%-3%.

And that’s what the fix fixes. Has nothing to do with class balance, even though – of course – it will affect it down the line. But you work from larger to smaller issues, and something as underlying as crit damage’s issues takes priority. Needs to be removed before further balancing happens, or all that balancing would be for naught later on.

It was clearly a nerf because they didn’t compensate for the massive +50% critical damage loss that almost every power build experienced.

And, no, the sigil and rune changes don’t make up for it. Not even close.

They’ve also made no statements of intent of giving some return to power builds for the loss. At this point, your claim is total fan-fiction.

Ferocity. Destroying power roaming builds in WvW for the sake of the PvE “meta” (which still isn’t going to change) is nonsensical and simple.

It’s as if ANet have been living under a rock and were completely unaware of how superior condition builds already were. Now it’s even worse.

fadeaway.2807:

~10% damage loss.

A 10% damage loss for previously full glass builds.

For anyone that bothered to invest in some survivability stats (ie. anyone but a confident SA Thief in WvW, and PvE players), it’s a far greater loss than just 10%.

T raw.4658:

I will continue to run stacking weapons.

IMO, the two primary issues with the Engi are their high access to CC and condi AoE.

CC via shield, Tool Kit, Bomb Kit (belt utility), Flamethrower, Supply Crate, etc.
AoE via Grenade Kit, Bomb Kit, Supply Crate, etc.

Tone both down to an extent and the Engi will be more balanced in PvP. In other game modes? The Engi is fine, or in need of utility buffs.

oZii.2864:

Many people know engineers are very weak to conditions and hard CC.

Between their excess of CC, blinds, blocks, and AoE conditions?

Any good Engi will proactively negate any potential hard CC in an even fight.