Then improve the other builds to match the standard set by this one. Don’t lower a build that is actually functional because the rest are broken and inoperable.
Buff-always is a bad design paradigm. While nerf-always is just as wrong, it usually works out slightly better. The proper answer is usually in the middle or outside the boundary, however.
While I would normally agree with you, your argument completly ignores the circumstances.
We are in a position in this game where each job only has maybe one or two well functioning build types, and their overall performance in the game are being weighed against one another based off of these high preforming builds. This is critically flawed against the policy Anet initialized as all classes being able to preform an emulation of all roles within their given design styles.
This is inclusive on top of the laundry list of continuous bugs that serve as prevalent reasons for many of these sub-par builds and performances.
Therefore, the adage of ‘buff and fix first, nerf later’ needs to be asserted with righteous and powerful authority here. When players are stuck arguing with each other as to what build they should gear for, because all of them are so effing powerful, then we can start looking to tone specific ones down depending on which ones are more exploitative and not a moment before.
Because right now, we’re in the opposite situation, and that’s going to push more players away, as illustrated in s/tPvP
Psychophant, Mesmer adjustments do not exist in a vaccume. Thief will always be easyplay to kill everyone because its skills are a First Order Operator, meaning they give the most performance for the initial skill.
Even with powerful traits, Mesmer requires a great deal of set up and execution to work properly. Deceptive evasion is just one ingredient, though it is a key one in any build that goes through illusions quickly for whatever reason.
Also, if you don’t want to be in thief territory, then you chose the wrong profession to begin with. Thieves and Mesmers are different sides of the same aesthetic coin, down even to sharing the same patron deity. These classes are inevitably going to be relate-able to one another, and detestable to players who hate slippery professions.
If anything, builds aside from shatter and condition specs need improvement. There are a lot of bugged or just ineffective traits and trait paths within mesmer that just don’t have a pourpose or serve a function, Mantras being our key note in this.
Secondly, this is ignoring any and all buffs provided to other Professions, some of which this patch were pretty good, and will likely be improving more as time goes on. This means there should be absolutely no reason why Mesmer itself cannot also improve.
I’m of the mind that Harmonious Mantras should be moved from a 30 trait to a 20 trait to start. As well as some other shuffling around of Mantra traits to make them more convenient on the bar to operate. I also think that the mantras themselves should be looked at, they just seem to primarily be tacked on and do not have a general working theme.
As far as ‘being able to out dps’ Thats Irrelevant argument. Every class should have the ability to do sizeable damage in this game, to the point where it can be on par with one another. Meaning, sometimes, yes, you should be out dpsing a thief or a Warrior circumstantially. It depends on how you’re building against what.
Ideally, there should be no class that completely dominates in any one of the trifecta of support, dps, and control. They should all work to varying effectiveness depending on the circumstance for each class.
So let’s not talk about “I don’t wanna preform well” in any of these circumstances. It’s foolish.
The problem with an OP trait/skill is that it just makes everyone want use the same build. Kinda goes against the idea of build diversity.
Then improve the other builds to match the standard set by this one. Don’t lower a build that is actually functional because the rest are broken and inoperable.
Not just for shatter builds, for suicide condition builds, or for cripple/ranged solo PVE setups. As well.
Put bluntly, clone production helps us in all ways, defensively and offensively, especially depending on how you trait it. In PvP.
As far as it not being deceptive, you’re reading too litterally into the name, and that is asenine. This is already a highly powerful trait as it stands, let’s not buff it further or kill it.
Instead, we should be getting better traits in the other 3 lines of our builds that need some attention.
Really the only thing that needs to happen is more exclusive buffs to other build traits, rather than nerf this trait. People are overreacting on this matter and again, we’ve no idea what else is down on the pipeline.
Yes, this means a buff to an already powerful spec, but other things about Mesmer were adjusted as well, and as noted by others, our defense did take a hit.
Some people just won’t be satisfied until nobody players mesmer, at all.
Well… this dont make any sense…
So… People here said clones are bad, very easy to spot, easy to kill. (For some coments here no one should use clones ever, the bad they are…)
Then, i go to PvP and see… clones… and “usualy” who has clones wins the fight.
And still people come here saying to OP to l2p or things like he is a bad player.
If clones dont bring any advantage to the mesmer why they still use them?
this dont make any sense to me.
Because very clone production ability comes as a side effect of another skill, be it a blink, root, stunbreak or as an end to a combo.
Theyr’e used as our utility for other skills and the fuel for our shatter skills. And they do distract enemies in PVE, even though they’re paper thin and the distraction is only for a moment.
Clone and Phantasm production is pretty much essential in every Memser Build because, well, they’re tied into every other mechanic we have.
Carry on rationalizing however you want to, won’t change what’s factual. Mesmers have shatter, phantasm, and condition builds going for them.
Mesmers have phantasm builds going for them right now? Just… wow… I think I’m done here.
Not everything revolves around sPvP where an enemy can jukedoge a phantasm.
Provided a Mesmer is carefully summoning and placing their phantasems, it’s still quite possible to use them in PVE effectively. Yes, it’s buggy and still needs fixing but once summoned they don’t dispawn if their attacks are dodged or blocked, only if the summon itself is dodged or blocked.
My biggest gripe is that they didn’t adjust the timers back down again and we still have the inflated timers even though our summons are more easily defended against. It’s overcompensation at this point and we deserve to have shorter timers now.
Phantasm builds took a big hit recently, but still function well if you’re working in a melee build.
However, the reason why your’re doing well is that conditions get underestimated pretty heavily in sPvP. Yes, mesmer has great distraction strenght against bad players, but good players often neglect condition damage as well in favor of stronger burst, and even bunker classes tend to underestimate the strength of specific status effects (ahem confusion) in the longer term.
So, no, mesmer is not overpowered. Condition damage typically goes unconquered in everything but specific bunker builds. Additionally, mesmers are hard to track due to having a decent number of builds.
There’s enough wrong with Mesmer right now for me not to play the class. LoS just brings to light all the other problems going wrong with the design of the class, which is unfortunate because I otherwise quite enjoy it.
However between the negative attiude of the forums (which is merited given the “we’re not going to say anything until it’s too late” policy Anet has) and the severe hits classes keep getting because players are complaining about PvP, I just don’t feel comfortable enough to spend my time in a game that just doesn’t feel polished.
Which, as Mesmer was what drew me into the game, it being in the sorry state it is in is enough to keep me from logging back on.
Essentially I’m restricted to 1h sword as an effective build. Not that I mind sword usage, it just feels less like the game that was promised to me about multiple viable builds and all I see is the progressive elimination of variable builds in favor of an illusion of balance that hasn’t even been reached.
LoS is only one part of a giant crippeling effect on the Mesmer mechanics as a whole.
Those who are “laughing at the bandwagon” are going to be cursing under their breath once they realize the nerfs are going to make the game that much less fun for them as well.
Not to mention they destroyed the viability of several builds in this patch.
Will I still play? Right now, I don’t want to play the game at all. Will I? Yes, because I do enjoy parts of the game, and still want mesmer to succeed long term.
But right now, the class is now broken. No bones about it. They centered us a around a resource mechanic that is no longer reliable in the least.
The issue here is that summoning illusions that can be LoSed away on a longer cooldown means that the longer cooldowns they implimented before in previous patches are now overcompensating the problem.
Those who actually play PvE are chafing a lot more due to this than they need to be, and the resulting nerfs to Berserker and Mage output has hurt us even more in a department we’re already struggeling in.
Again, if this is the path they are taking – they need to remake the class to compensate so it actually functions in this enviroment.
I would not be opposed to a projectile-based illusion that summoned once, was completely immortal, attacked for incoming damage, then disipated if our illusion skills were based around it.
Right now, they’re trying to skirt the line of Mesmer’s illusions between spells and pets and it’s really not working as they are receiving the weaknesses of both and the benefits of neither.
Not only that, but the effective damage output for mesmers on all fronts has been severely reduced.
Again, they did this the wrong way and now the class absolutely needs a rewrite, not just a rebalancing, a reconstruction of its most basic mechanics to offset the fact that their illusions are no longer effective outside of open area close range for LONG term fighting.
They also said “After a while” meaning that the Mesmer had plenty of time to sit there, and summon multiple defenders.
More importantly, there’s no mention of phantasms or clones in this, which means that the defenders were likely up top with the buddies… getting healed.
Someone was healing the pDefenders, someone else was healing the mesmer. The mesmer looked like s/he was taking no damage, when in truth it was being mitigated to the point of nothingness and the source of the defenses was upkept.
@Kalar Meadia
A bunker who is only prolonging the fight until his roamer teammate arrives speaks volumes about how bunkers are just plain very effective at staying alive.
Again, do we know that this is intended? No.
Is my personal opinion that they need to be toned down in order for an opponent to have a better chance? Yes.
What is the actual drawback to a player playing as bunker that can survive long enough until his team mates arrive? Nothing. It’s too effective as it is. Sorry.
There is no drawback to having a bunker sit on a point in a competitive game, other than sheer boredom for said bunker. All he has to do is survive long until his teammates come to help. That’s it. That’s all they’re there for. So in your opinion, you may consider this “GOOD” gameplay", but to me it sounds like a PvE version of a mini boss or something. It’s just plain ridiculous.
When you consiter that capturing and holding points is the entire focus of the entire game, no, it isn’t at all.
Additionally, you’re forgetting that killing the enemy is not the focus of the agenda bunker or no. Getting the enemy off the point long enough to neturalize and eventually capture the objective is.
Now I’m going to turn the question back at you for a moment. What is ridiculous about a gameplay mechanic that forces team fights over ganking/back-capping points?
One encourages more team play, the other encourages passive or zerg-like play, which is HIGHLY evidenced in how 8v8 hotjoin currently works. No bunker can hold a point long enough for reinforcements in an 8 v 8, therefore there’s no point in defending vs counter-capping. It becomes a meta ruled by zergs and roamers.
A bunker gives time for reinforcements. Meaning that when assaulting a point, you have to prepare for a team-fight. This means you have a long term gameplan on how you’re going to cap or null the point. (This can mean pulling the bunker off point and chain CCing in stages rather than focusing on burst-killing them. This can also mean planning an ambush of his reinforcements.)
Again, you say that they bunker too well? Why is that? You claim it’s the effectivness of the bunker’s survivalbility. I state that there’s little to no penalty for those who run glass cannon/high mobility builds to simply, go in, blow cooldowns, die, return in a matter of a few seconds (Likely cycling another reinforcement) to simply blow those high burst cooldowns again.
Also, when the bunker DOES die, it’s simply a matter of having enough people cycling back to the point until the bunker can return, which isn’t long at all.
AoE and condition improvements should do enough to tone down the bunker’s effectiveness as we have builds that are still not up to par. There’s no need to nerf bunkers directly in this sense.
But there does need to be a larger penalty for death so when you do defeat a bunker, he’s out of commission for a while. Same goes for his assistance. This will also give burst their higher risk/reward system they should be accustomed to, as right now, they die and are back just in time for their cooldowns anyways. Sustained DPS or ‘middle of the road’ classes are suffering because of it.
This will balance out the Meta and effectiveness far more than simply saying “It’s the Bunker’s fault.”
So you get hard countered by a main-hand dagger elementalist.
Not feeling any sympathy here, as it’s your decision to invest to hard into caltrops, and the Elementalist itself has to juggle condition clears in order to survive all those stacks of bleed.
Sorry but Caltrops build can be a severe pain to many builds, especially melee based ones. To have a counter that is equally annoying to it is fair play on this issue. Again, you’re are capable of being out of range of the stun, or by having stability.
False logic.
First off. It’s easy as all daylights to make a skin, they likely have a back catalogue of them already built to last till the end of first quarter 13.
Second, you’re talking two entirely different teams. One is the graphics department, the other programming/coding. And coding can take far… FAR more time especially when dealing with bugs, as the error can be one single widget out of line out of millions.
I understand if you have absolutely no clue how game design works this might all seem the same to you, but please don’t speak out of such sheer levels of ignorance.
And you sound like all the Thieves did about the Backstab bullkitten. “BS’s fine, l2p, blah, blah, blah”
Nice to end that with a baseless accusation. I was against Assassin’s Signet the way it was and I’m more happy with the current incarnation (People think of this still as a huge boost to THF damage, but they forget that not all damage abilities are weighed equally.)
Unless the specific type of Bunker counters your build exactly, you can ALWAYS 1 v 1 anyone. You don’t even know your own argument, so it’s increasingly hard to respect it.
Your argument is that a Bunker can outlast until your enemy team arrives, and this is fine. This is actually GOOD gameplay. Yes, Bunker is effective in doing so. No, not perfectly so. Having the enemy team show up does not mean the end of your assault. In fact, it’s often more smart to switch gears and destroy the bunker’s aiding teammate. Which is why it’s important that your DPS has decent sustain
By the way, it’s a waste of time having 3 bunkers vs 2 dps unless you have no confidence that you can hold 2 points with 2 bunkers. Only time you assault the third point is if your enemy overextends on one point.
With boon removal now effecting Aegis, the bunker classes are more or less on even footing. There still needs to be buff to certain AoE damage and specific condition builds, which will add more depth to the fight (Less single target focus damage means that enemies that Aid the bunker suffer damage at the same time as the bunker, weakeneing the Bunker’s ability to sustain on point.)
However your argment that bunkers should simply die faster is wrong (This should happen on its own as other performance specs are brought up to par, no need for direct nerf.) If anything, the ease of players to be able to swap utlities/weapons in order to sprint back to aid points is more of a problem than the bunkers themselves. Rather than further nerf classes, Anet may want to consider extending the death timer after making the AoE adjustments.
Is it the damage tic that’s procing the stun, or is it the condition application that’s doing it?
In my expirence the only reason why field effect status locks down enemies is because the field constantly re-applies their status effects. At this point it’s not the ‘bleed’ that’s causing the damage, so much as the application of bleed and cripple the effect keeps layering on the shield, which then counters it like it would a normal attack.
Given the shield’s limited stun range I woulden’t say it’s broken. It’s just bad placement on behalf of the field user. This ability counters damage field based attacks only if the enemy is in close range, making it a decent bunker-counter to those style defenders.
Another Merciless QQ post.
Metas do not change overnight. People will try the same methods untill new methods that defeat them are used.
However, in a capture and hold, bunkers and roamers are going to be powerful no matter what, because that’s’ the core design of the game type. It has little or nothing to do with power of bunkers in sPvP. If it was deathmatch, bunkers would be a waste of space because they would either get focused one on one or their allies would continually die around them.
You don’t ruin effective game type builds. Fixing the Aegis issues will balance out Guardian a bit better against other bunkers, and changing assassin’s signet tones Thief Down as a gib roamer. (Yes, it’s more damage over time, but the over time part isn’t the issue with thief, it’s the burst. Now there is more time to react.)
Complaining about the party composition we have for Capture and Hold is like complaining that the meta is 1 support, 1 ranged dps, 1 tanky dps, 1 jungle, and 1 AP mid in League of Legends.
That’s not broken, that’s what the game is settling itself into.
Yeah, longevity isn’t a concern here as far as Phantasems are a concern. They already die way too easily in PvE for it to be consitered to make them any weaker than they already are. Part of the reason why they can front crits of 5k and above on squishy targets is the fact that in PvE, they’re pretty much dead immediately afterwards unless the Mesmer makes a concentrated effort to Chain CC long enough for a second cycle.
As far as it’s reaction towards those in sPvP. Again, it’s a Meta concern. The threat of pseudo-passive damage in large staggered quality is what causes panic in Players. And those who are overly focused on single target bursts are at a disadvantage. But being at a disadvantage because of your playstyle isn’t fundamentally broken. It just encourages rounded builds and teamwork.
See, the reason why I’m for a re-imagining shatters along with the Phantasm adjustments is that a major problem with implementing changes to weaken phantasms but have them passively strengthen the Mesmer is the fact that the Phantasm lifespan is so small that passive damage bonuses may not even be utilized.
Having the option to individually shatter them for a unique attacks at least gives phantasms a means of being useful in situations in which they would die too quickly for their new passive effects to be of use. – and it adds an additional layer of deception to their build.
If you leave them alone, they give passive improvements to the Mesmer you’re fighting, if you attempt to kill them, the mesmer can just shatter them for a powerful attack. Either way the Mesmer keeps you guessing, which is the core of the profession.
My OP wasnt about shatter builds. Frankly I can accept high damage from any class if its avoidable.
Shatter builds are strong but I’m at peace with the fact that i can see it coming and avoid it.
Shatters require the mesmer to time it correctly and allows me a chance to position myself to defend against it.Phantasms damage, whether in a shatter build or phantasms build is just pure random.
Dodging the burst attack from phantasms is almost close to pure luck.Not every profession can efficiently auto-attack them down.
And having to blow cooldowns to be rid of them is a joke too.My qualm is that where every profession requires a mixture of offensive and defensive play, the phantasms are just self controlled, honing missiles that can do alot of damage.
Shatter builds are strong as it is, do they really require the extra 2k-3k from an illusionary unload or burden?
Pure phantasm builds should be based on the utility of the phantasm..and then force the mesmer to utilise their weapon for pure damage. (the option to shatter them still remains)
Having to battle with your sword/pistol or GS while your phantasms provide cripple, bleeds, protection, regeneration seems like a legit playstyle to me without the need for them to dish out the extra damage.
Buffing weapon damage in the process doesnt bother me. Once again, its avoidable.
It comes down to skill and positioning. And i can accept that rather than be pummeled with close to unavaoidable damage while the mesmers only goal there-after is to avoid you.
I’m going to put a couple of your statements in question, and please don’t take it as a personal affront, I’m just providing the devil’s advocate prospective for you to consider.
Phantasms damage, whether in a shatter build or phantasms build is just pure random.
Dodging the burst attack from phantasms is almost close to pure luck.
I disagree.
Shatters are something you will have equal difficulty keeping track of if the Mesmer stagger-shatters. For example, I can throw a Mirror blade into an enemy crowd which summons a clone on spot, which I can then immediately shatter for extra damage on top of its effects, and if you’ve not spotted me (I can do it from stealth) you’re hit. The shatter tactic you refer to being able to dodge is the burst shatter with Illusionary Persona, which will usually be precluded by multiple lockdown attempts.
In contrast, the ONLY instant summon Phantasm is Berserker. It is also the only one that can break LoS and appear adjacent to you. Swordsman and Duelist both will appear in relation to the caster and have a very distinct one second summon motion. (Watch the left hand, if it’s glowing purple, dodge immediately after the hand drops, but only if you’re in range of the one summoned. IE, close to the Mesmer.)
Not every profession can efficiently auto-attack them down.
And having to blow cooldowns to be rid of them is a joke too.
On most professions, you have to blow cool downs to remove conditions so I don’t see this as a valid argument. The bigger issue here is the lack of AoE play in common s/tpvp, which will often be a Mesmer’s bane due to the low HP pools on their illusions in general. A staff Elementalist or Necromancer has no problems with Mesmers when they play to their defensive strengths unless the Mesmer plays the harass game, which actually performs weakly against bunkers in practice. By the time it has any impact on its own, reinforcements have arrived.
As the meta shifts to more AoE friendly classes, this concern about ‘I have to blow cool downs to take care of Mesmer illusions’ will settle down. Mesmer itself has already suffered cool down increases on their faster illusions.
A larger issue here is the fact that models just don’t load quickly in the thick of combat, even in tPvP. A mesmer uses a summon and the phantasm model doesn’t load until after the attack is triggered in many cases. If there was a particle effect that announced a phantasm’s arrival on the field at the location they arrive, this would be the tell players would need to attempt an evade, regardless of whether or not the model loaded. I believe this should happen regardless of adjustments, as particle effects load much faster than full models.
Again, these are just disagreements against the reasons, not the proposal.
I still believe steps should be taking to make Mesmer itself more powerful on the field and make Phantasms a more strategic element than a straight damage element, but I feel as if there needs to be a lot of adjustments to Mesmer itself to make it possible without critically harming the class.
‘overly effective’ is a question of milage.
More and more people in both s and t pvp are getting accustomed to stomping down mesmer clones and phantasms quickly and in PVE you’ll be lucky if your phantasms finish more than one rotation on any content harder than a zergfest event.
‘Easy’ is a matter of just knowing when to summon what, which is harder than facerolling thieves and much easier than a juggling elementalist. The more difficult the situation, the more complicated it becomes than just throwing your pantasms in there and have them do damage for you.
But the adaptability of our class is pretty much rooted in the structure of it. The protect/regen isn’t enough to really justify them on the field, and is very trait dependent, and Mesmers themselves really don’t have much as far as “I’m the one that’s dealing damage now” abilities.
Now, if we did something along the lines that each phantasm did comparitively less damage, but gave the Mesmer a bonus effect, such as Critical chance/damage from Duelist, Movement speed from berserker. Or even just straight damage increases to the mesmer that were independent of the traits. That might make things more interesting.
In the end, Phantasms are supposed to make the Mesmers stronger and more dangerous. Right now they do so by doing damage themselves, but I can see that change into something that makes the mesmer themselves more of a threat while the phantasm is out.
Personally I’d also like see more depth in the shatter mechanic. If we could shatter illusions individually, and that shattering phantasms would grant a special move from the mesmer itself. (Like shattering a berserker would allow the Memser to do it’s own Illusionary Sweep attack, regardless of what weapon they had equipped.)
But these are just design pipedreams.
There are bunker Mesmer builds, which I don’t often use, you’ll have to refer to them for their best.
But the key to the trait synergy is in Phantasmal Healing and Illusionary Membrane
Phantasmal Healing allows Phantasms to grant AoE regeneration to nearby allies at set pulses. It’s considered a bug, but hasn’t been fixed yet, but Phantasmal Duelist provides this ever 3 seconds for a five second buff. All others apply the buff ever 10 seconds.
Illusionary Membrane gives you 2 seconds of Protection whenever you receive regeneration, from any source.
With 2 Duelists, you’re constantly under protection and regeneration. But even without, with more than one Phantasm out you’re getting consitant regeneration and poping in and out of protection frequently.
Yeah it’s not really known well, but a Elementalist suffers continual downed penalties when using mist form. It’s not a free get out of jail card.
half those skills you used to stack all those conditions are on a longer CD than the Mesmer Phantasms and don’t carry the kind of utility that goes with the phantasms (which everyone traits for). They also require careful timing, positioning, and in some cases control, where as phantasms are just a fire and forget.
A debate of pros and cons, we can have.
But the problem is, even to engage on that conversation conceeds my point: That passive damage is ok in this game. People hate on Phantasms because it has to be directly confronted instead of just blowing one of your condition curing cooldowns.
All of the issues that could be brought up that try to justify condition damage against mesmer phantasems can be regarded with buffs to the classes that need them desprately. Yes, Mesmer has some of the best trait synergy in the game. However, just because it does, does not mean it should be removed. It means the other classes need to have better trait synergy.
Right now the best trait synergy for Elementalists forgoes offense or foregoes defense, where as Mesmer can gear offensively and trait defensively. They’re’s no real middle of the road synergies for Elementalist, and I think that’s really because they have no vitality/toughness/condition damage combinations in pendants and elementalist is really lacking in native HP pool to go sages.
Replace moa with an ability that clears every condition and grants stability for 6 seconds, 60 second cooldown.
The CD would have to be at least 90 or 120 seconds, with perhaps a trait that lowers the recharge.
It’d be a useless elite, in my opinion. Lyssa set already does this on a 90 second cooldown via mass invis.
Clears every debuff, and gives every buff (including stability) for 5 seconds.
If we’re going to eliminate time warp we need to remove the quickness mechanic entirely. Not something I’ll miss, personally but that’s something to keep in mind – it’s an everyone or no-one mechanic when it comes to where accessibility should lie. Otherwise there will be insane imbalances surrounding it like there is now.
There’s a lot of “Perfect Clone” requests for an elite, though I’m not exactly sure how it would work. Perhaps a clone that actually replicates your motions and skills, but that would still reveal you when it collides with a wall or siding. (Unless you do so pourposfully to throw people off.)
It’d be interesting that, for a period of time, you had no clone/phantasm limit, or a higher limit on them.
There are plenty of options, but the ones we have aside from Mass Invis are kinda iffy.
…
Really?
Some people play beyond tPvP and portal is essentially neglected in PvE and WvW it’s highly situational at best.
Do you really have to resort to such attack comments about the viability of a class to say “You’re only valuable for Portal, you should run that and not care about getting nerfed at all.” – that’s a aggressive red herring.
Portal is irrelevant to the performance of a mesmer outside of simply being able to teleport him/herself and others to a location.
It does not matter if a Mesmer can telport if he can’t contribute to the fight meaningfully in any other way. If you nerf the viable aspects of the profession, you need to make sure that a) it still remains viable instead of just over the op, and b) you allow other builds to be viable as well. Therefore, you counter a nerf with a buff. And right now, there are some PvP aspects of Mesmer that could be toned down, sure, but Mesmer in PvE needs help desperately. The things that do well for it in PvP don’t matter for squat in PvE and using portals as justification to ignore fixing the class right is bad form, and speaks more to the point that you yourself do not know much about the goings on of the profession.
Or to put it in a simple catchphrase, because our add society loves them so much. Less talk of nerfing, more actual balancing.
Phantasms also GREATLY outdamage any conditions in both absolute damage and DPS.
Incorrect.
My Condition Elementalist alone can stack Bleed/Burning for far more than 1k/second, and that damage is non-critical, AoE, and cannot be dodged once applied (You’re forced to clear it.)
It takes 2 seconds worth of channel on cooldowns to produce 2 Phantasms. It takes a critical hit to deal high damage (Reliant on traits + Mesmer’s stats.) All the while, these damage sources can be Destroyed, dodged, and CCed, and also go idle if target is invisible, and self destruct if they breach max control distance chasing their target.
Should mention, all but berserker and warden are single target attackers as well.
Issue here is viability of survival vs damage performance. My condition damage Elementalist is pure glass cannon, but the clones/phantasms double as distractions. Simply put, better survival tools for other classes are needed.
There are some really bad players, and worse debaters, in this thread.
First off:
I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you’re a mesmer who uses Moa Morph.
Horrible assumption, and wrong. I’m a Mass Invis Mesmer. It’s far more important to be able to reset an engagement every minute and a half than it is to polymorph someone for 10 seconds every 3 minutes. It also has good synergy with a full Lyssa set, and even more if you’re going bunker/buff build with signet of inspiration.
If the only argument to defend an ability is:
‘you can dodge it’
Blind leading the blind. You woulden’t happen to be republian, would you? What is it with people with their revisionist way of viewing conversations.
Let’s run down the list of mitigations for Moa a minute:
1. 3 minute cooldown. Meaning you will get 3 uses out of it in a 9 minute match 4 if it extends beyond that, but it’s unlikely.
2. 2 second rooted chanel
2a Channel is interrupt-able and places the effect on full cooldown.
- aside. YES a mesmer can decoy and then cast Moa. But Decoy is a 3 second duration untraited and is a Mesmers ONLY stealth utility skill. And this still does not prevent the mesmer from AoE effects that can interrupt the channel.
3. Effect can be dodged and broken from line of sight.
-After Being Moaed-
1. Moa is in full control of character for 10 second duration.
2. Moa retains buffs and is able to receive buffs.
3. Moa can dodge.
4. Moa can be defended by allies.
5. Moaed champion still counts towards capturing/contesting a point.
Personally, I hope they remove the skill from the game, just to stop the whining. Again, my opinion is that it classes with the design of the class. But never have such whining butthurt for being bad.
Why don’t people admit to the truth instead of trying to create BS reasons for something to change. It should be enough to simply state that:
-Polymoph is a unfun mechanc, worse when it is a long duration.
- It feels cheep to use and be struck with. It’s a hard counter to poor players, and is bugged/broken when it comes to Necromancers.
- Most players do not want to have to deal with a system of hard-counters and having to play around them.
I too, am against hard counters. I am against obscene burst damage. Mesmer has a hard counter, but only a shatter build has the burst potential, and even then it requires a good deal of set up to preform, easily twice as much as a thief. (8steps vs 4. 9-10 hits vs 1-3).
And any balancing to tone Mesmer down has to come up with some pretty hefty buffs to a Mesmer’s own damage performances as they’re very poor right now, and is the reason why Mesmers are crowding similar builds.
Anyways, in summary.
1. Your reasons for wanting to nerf or get rid of Mesmer’s Moa elite is bad, and you should feel bad for using political attack tactics to try to justify your feelings and skill/teamwork.
2. I would adore it if Mesmer’s Moa Elite was done away with and replaced with something more thematically cohesive.
3. Nerf to Mesmer’s Moa/Phantasms/Shatters need to come with equal or superior buffs/fixes to the mesmer itself that broaden its purview of viable builds for PvP and PvE. (That last part should be applied to every profession. Nerfs need to be countered with buffs that help make each build types viable all game types, even if that means separation of PvP/PvE traits/abilities.)
pSwordsman is 4.7 second recast time. and is unaffected by Phantasmal Haste.
I find it hard to justify a nerf on Phantasmal Swordsman given our lack of personal damage effects.
The underlining argument against Mesmers really is the fact that they essentially have passive damage in the form of Phantasms. However I have to wonder what the essential difference is between Phantasms and Conditions in this regard, both require cooldowns to be rid of, just that Phantasms require offensive cooldowns rather than defensive. And while not touching them does mean their damage is continual until you die, unlike conditions they can be out-ranged as well.
I could understand a damage spike nerf on shatter builds. But an adjustment to phantasms damage would have to come with a two-fold trade off.
First, individual mesmer damage would have to be raised (our personal damage is poor, as well as our long term mobility – these are standard complaints from PvE that flood over into forcing Mesmer into specific PvP builds.) As well as additional utilities from Phantasms to justify the long cooldowns.
As of right now, only Warden and Zerker have any real form of utility attached to them.
I’ve stated before that PvE and PvP need to be seperately adjusted entities. As far as Mesmer’s high level preformance compared to other classes. People rate preformance based off of timeliness, which to me is a bad standard to have period.
Now, I’m all for buffs to Mesmer to make it better for PvE, that’s fine by me. But when you got people wanting severe nerfs for PvP, and people wanting buffs for PvE, you begin to realize just how bad it was to tether the two sections together.
Again, this is irrelevant theorycrafting.
I just pointed out its a 2v2 and you COMPLETELY ignored that while I am Moa birding you, my other buddy might actually be using his skills as opposed to just standing around.
Further more, any coordinated group of two, racing in on another two will have a cc train coordinated if they know they are using moa bird.
But yes, newsflash – bad players can mis-use good skills and be easily countered. That isn’t what everyone is complaining about.
You’re the one doing irrelevant theorycrafting.
You assume much of your own team and little of the enemy team. You can anticipate a Moa and respond accordingly. The fact that you try to pass it off as an IWin button is telling of your inability to counter it in practice yourself.
What I am telling you is, in practice, it is the largest threat (usually the damage source) in a 2 v 2 that gets moaed. This leaves your defender (The bunker who is to assume the point when the damage roams on, the capability to defend the Moaed player.
What TYPICALLY happens is that you can burst down the Moaed target because the defender is too uncoordinated with his ally to make a move. However, an organized duo will hold CCs until the cooldown is burned or their own burst is ready. (Necro fears, Mesmer pulls/stuns, Guardian bubbles, Engi Supply drops, etc.)
But there’s no convincing your type that you can get better. You’re more of the opinion that you shouldn’t have to get better. You complain instead of adapting. It’s hiding under the meta and it’s actually a sad and common thing.
Now, should Moa get adjusted? Sure, again I’m of the opinion that Mesmer never should have had a polymorph, as it does not fit with their motif. But don’t sit here and tell me you can’t outplay a Moa. That’s just sour grapes.
To OP:
Because passive damage reflect has absolutely no place in any competitive game.
Moderator edit: removed content against our Code of Conduct
The most popular and largest prize pool MOBA Game has multiple occurances of Passive and Active Damage reflection in their game and you say it has no place in sPVP.
I’ll be so happy if your words just go ignored.
Retalization needs fixing, and boon removal (As well as quickness, IMO) needs to be a utility that is accessable to every class’s native kit. (It is available as a Sigil, if people are unaware.)
However such bias and crass statments as if you hold any weight or authroity in the field of Player vs Player games is obscene, and a discredit to those making inteligent critisim of the boon.
(edited by Moderator)
They’re typically not using Moa on the tanky type of the two of you, so yes, your ally should be able to survive the 10 seconds.
Or, he can disengage WITH you, back off from point, and simply reengage when you’re recovered. No one ever said your buddy was obligated to sit and take a beating.
And there in lies the quintessential problem with builds right now: In the current sPvP meta, elementalists are so dependent on survivability to become an impact that it subverts all offensive potential in the profession.
I’m thinking about taking this method and changing the approach to condition damage, as a lot of dagger skills provide burns and bleeds.
My only comment on this is that this sort of blog post and announcements did not need to go through a lengthy translation and delegation process to announce new and upcoming things.
Something to take to your superiors, Jon:
You have multilingual fans who are more than willing to go through a translation process with you to speed up the spread of knowledge. Use them. Most players in multiple languages understand that sometimes it’s better to have quick, concise communication, even with announcements, than it is to sit and wait on them while they are mulled over by a committee of translators and editors.
There was far too little revealed here to have gone through such a procession. Put bluntly, this wasn’t worth a three week wait.
Eles don’t duel as well as other professions, and I think that leads to the opinion that they are lackluster. They need some changes, especially under dagger/dagger, but it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. They can absolutely excel in a 2v2 environment.
D/D is incredible burst and mobility.
Also very very very very fragile unless built highly specifically. I’ve yet to find a d/d build I’ve been satisfied with. Especially against thieves.
@panh
You asked me about drawbacks that ive experienced in structured pvp mesmer play…
I have to say the main drawback is that the class is squishy squishy and once the meta game matures and people learn how to play against mesmers things are going to be much tougher. right now people get fooled by clones some of the time and I dont expect that will last. Also people will learn to deal with stealth too.
lets see drawbacks… well the mesmer is really not a forgiving class at all. it takes really excelent control of your mesmer ie really good w-a-s-d ect ect positioning awareness to make it work. no margin for error because being half a second late on a stun break will mean you die every time.
I also mentioned that as far as burst damage goes I just dont see it on my sword/sword/greatsword dueling build. Its more about consistent damage and evasiveness to wear down the enemy and exploit their weaker gaming skills with my superior character control…
Pretty much this. A lot of what I do is Auto attack on GS or Sword while keeping the enemy disorientated/CCed. Phantasms are usually brought up to compliment apply their secondaries. (Stacking Bleeds through Sharper Images on iDuelist, crippling through. And I’ll shatter them without a second thought if I think the advantage is good enough or I’m not confident in their ability to survive until their next rotation.
Berserker right now stands as the most useful among them because their summoning results in a quick AoE damage as well as a mass-cripple, but shooting it into an enemy team usually means I have to immediately shatter it after it’s attack as it absolutely will not survive, and I’m primarily using it as a harass tactic.
Duelist’s secondary is to provide a counter against heavy ranged opponents. The volly forces them into a dodge and defensive posture, which then I can follow up with a berserker and begin to pursue.
I think you took my intention backwards.
My statement is that they are currently treating the 3 games as 1 field. My suggestion is that they separate at the very least sPvP from that.
This will allow for better turnaround and more adjustments tailored specifically to the context that the class is being played in.
I’m personally more in support of a game that rewards higher-minded play than simply APM and how fast you can lock your fingers up into arthritis.
Though I do believe the class diversity and the reason certain classes are better at automated/slow-play are build for that sort of environment. There can, and should, be room for both.
Didn’t even know that originated from Michael, honestly don’t care enough to know if it was true or not; I certainly wouldn’t blame them if it was.
Just look at the comment below yours… The user opens by stating that “80% of random sPvP being thieves is the perfect example of a lack of balance”. That is what they have to deal with, exaggeration compounded on stupidity. How can you hope to communicate, inform, and educate people like that? Let alone actually sate.
I wish all those people would just take a break and come back to the game when the high-end competitive tPvP is more visible. I constantly worry that their stupidity will somehow influence the devs. Fortunately, that does not seem to be the case so far =).
It may be hyperbole, but the underlining concern is correct. Thief is, by an incredible margin, the most popular sPvP class in the game.
Competitive tPvP is irrelevant to this, regardless of your statment. There is a large and immediate concern about highly skewed participation rates in favor of thief, and for good reason. Discussions about tPvP is essentially a red herring argument because it is in and of itself a separate entity with it’s own culture. It also has its own problems.
But both sPvP’s and tPvP’s issues are equally valid and should be addressed.
So no, the solution is not to ignore the overstated or uninformed opinions, but to look at the root problem causing them. Thief is overly popular in sPvP for a reason, but even if Thief can and is often countered in tPvP, that does not solve the sPvP issue. Steps must be taken both to balance out the popularity and further inform the playerbase. In some cases, the only way to do that is to take a class down a notch or two, but in many cases a buff towards those that are weak to the build may be in order.
I’m not much one for tolerance of idiocy, but you have to have it if you’re thinking of making a game that doubles as a service. The cries of the low tier can often be warning signs that something somewhere needs to be addressed. You first start with the accusation, then you run through your causalities. But ignoring it outright is not the right course to take.
Nope. Thieves and Mesmers are not ruining the game.
Poor design is ruining the game.
Many of the problems that make Thief and Mesmer so much of a kitten to play against (- I can’t believe it, I’m now typing out the word kitten, such an addictive fake-cuss) are because of larger issues that are effecting sPvP as a whole. Such as the lack of effective defensive measures on many build routes or the lackluster performance of such measures.
Some aspects, such as horrendous burst damage, would be completely fixed if Toughness spike scaled against damage intensity or if there was such a stat as “Critical Defense.”
More importantly, or perhaps it is accurate to say Most Importantly the core of the unbalance between classes truely lies within the limitations of the equipment system used in PvP. Amulets/Jewels are not cutting it, and are the entire reason why Bunker and Burst builds are the most popular.
If the amulets and gems were split into the full accessory bar instead of just one slot, and the equipment were broken down into more modular increments, a far wiser approach on how to adjust abilities based on this availability would be able to be made.
Right now, the amulets available appeal to very specific builds that are not accessible to all professions to the same effect.
It’s becoming clearer with each day and each patch more importantly that adjustments in one of the above stated categories are having adverse effects on the others.
More importantly, to many players it is patently obvious that some profession kits are constructed in a way that any adjustments to balance to both will not properly address problems in either without causing profound impacts between the balances here.
Given the aspirations of Arenanet to turn the Structured Player vs Player concept into an E-sport. I believe that the best course of action moving forward is to begin treating sPvP as a separate game entity entirely. This means not only making adjustments that would only apply to Structured and Tournament Player vs Player, but to also go as far as to create ability and trait kits built around such a structure.
While I understand this is something that may effectively double the workload for balance teams I believe I can speak for many on both sides of the spectrum that the effort would go greatly appreciated and would do absolute wonders for the development process on both ends of the game.
It would likely be a great lift of the shoulders of balance teams to not have to worry about the implications of sPvP adjustments bleeding into PvE play, and vice versa, and more efforts can be given to develop each profession into being both balanced and viable for each concept.
This would also allow for more diverse builds to work in both aspects, as those builds can be specifically tailored to the context they exist in.
All and all I do admire the ideal that Arenanet wanted to create a world where you could just jump into play and enjoy it. However I cannot continue to deny the fact that it feels like Arenanet tried to mash two entirely different games together and now is struggling with the fact that balancing these separate entities as one is proving to be counterproductive. Divorcing these two aspects fully may very well be just what the doctor ordered.
(edited by Kalar Meadia.8439)
I’m not torn on Quickness as a mechanic. I’ve a pretty established opinion that it should be an “All or Nothing” situation in which case ever profession should have some form of it within their kit, or none of them should, regardless of the circumstances.
The concept of bursting your character’s normal movement and action is no different in my eyes than the concept of having some form of defense mechanism that negates incoming damage, such as dodging, stun breaking and the immunity skills each class has in some manner.
I’m leaning more on the side of “Give it to everyone.” to be honest, because some builds in classes could really benefit and would enable them to use certain combos that are just very difficult to pull off.
The game can then be balanced on the idea that, hey, anyone can blow up and be super-quick briefly, now it’s not a matter of just this one mechanic. And deal with issues on who’s benefiting the most from it, and how the root skills can be toned down to accommodate its presence.
Again, this is the flaw of the gametype. Capture and Hold promotes defense over offense.
But you try to promote “Defense wins Games” in any MOBA type game and you’ll often lose, because it’s assault objective based and defense can’t defend turrets.
Sorry to say this so many times, but this IS wakamole, Anet. Until you make the changes that make the standouts less so and multiple builds per class equally viable in contrast to their opponents, you’re going to be caught in the adjustments loop.
I don’t know what the idea here is about quickness. If you’re caught for whatever reason, and it’s used, you’re dead in many cases, and even if you reacted, you’re still severely injured in an endgagement.
The tone of top-end damage spikes in this game needs to be brought down somewhat.
In the efforts of focusing defense vs focusing offense, the gains for certain classes to go offensive vs other classes is completely and utterly out of balance. To truely have a “All classes can play many if not all roles.” Then the performance values of overall spike damage, AoE Damage, Condition Damage, and Defensiveness all need to be roughly equalized within a certain margin of skill and human error.
Right now, it is absolutely no where within the ballpart of this. It’s effectively becoming the wackamole rock paper scissors gameplay that Anet stated clearly that they wanted to avoid.
And quickness is an essential part of this.
I will put this in the most plain terms so that everyone involved can understand: Either every single profession in this game needs to have access to quickness, or NO profession in the game should have access to quickness. It is a buff that cannot and should not be cherry picked for specific classes due to how powerful it is.
Once this overall decision is made, the question as to adjustments that need to be made for it’s global use/absence can then be assessed in a properly equal environment.
But that is just one issue of a fundmental flaw in the class balance system that basically skews the risk/reward system as well as the build approach effectiveness into the favor of one or two specific professions for each role.
Devs: Can you justify Mesmers nerf on pvp should spill over to pve!
in PvP
Posted by: Kalar Meadia.8439
I got to agree, this adjustment did nothing for our PvP performance. Those who were dieing to phantasems were not clearing them properly to begin with and the cooldown was a moot point.
All this did was make the 20% Cooldown trait on illusion summoning skills even more mandatory for Mesmers than it already was, and people will STILL complain about Mesmers being OP for all the wrong reasons.
For stating that they did not want to play wack-a-mole with gaming balance, they sure seem to be doing so, and while blindfolded at that.