Guild Wars 2

Condi Shatter mesmers still need a buff. Something, anything. Maim was crushed far more than IP or any other trait makes up for.

If power shatter is the only thing Mesmer has still after HoT, I’ll be moving on.

I play mtd in pvp like a stealthy magical bruiser with PU, Harmonious Mantras, and Malicious Sorcery, with Rabid gear.

1v1 works well, but in a group it falls apart, scepter block is hard to target a specific person, I don’t want to run into a group for IP, Illusions die to cleave in seconds, and a 3 clone shatter feels like a fart in the wind.

Is stronghold pvp only coming with HoT or will it be released (1 map?) as a game type soon?

CoraxRnR.5742:

So, being a Mesmer main might make me somewhat biased.

3. Prismatic Understanding
I’ll be short here: I personally strongly dislike this trait. I never specced into Chaos for this trait.

4. Blinding Dissipation
Love that trait. One could argue for ICD, but I wouldn’t go that far for now.

5. Harmonious Mantras
I actually don’t know that much about the trait. Don’t really know as I have not been playing with it.

6. The whole Inspiration line
Again, haven’t played with it. I don’t know kitten about playing with it.
Corax

Thanks for the insightful post to start up another nerf Mesmer thread…

Maybe if there were actually torment/confusion runes and sigils?

I can buff burning and bleeding durations and damage but of course there is jack for torment and confusion.

Yeah this is what pvp is like to a new player for quite awhile. Abilities and animations happen very fast with no cast bars and each does multiple things, conditions and boons blink on and off constantly, health bars are tiny and dull and spell effects are big and spammy. A new player now will die over and over and have no idea why. Spectating is no easier.

Zord.6130:

TyPin.9860:

But well, that’s just me it seems.

It’s not just you. Any sane player believes PU is in absolute need of HEAVY shaves – both mesmers and all other players.
It’s just that coming here to QQ is pretty much useless because of all the insane amount of trash players trying to defend a build with which they have started to win some 1v1s with and, thus, are enjoying the sensation of feeling like a god.

So yeah, the devs are probably aware of this so a nerf is already in the air. Just wait for a few more days. This is not the only thing that needs to be shaved though.

God help us if mesmers start winning some 1v1’s, that should never be allowed and must obviously be nerfed ASAP.

I’m getting tired of elemental/guardian/necros with amazing sustain and damage that a condi mesmer can’t keep up with. Oh and grenades, WTF already. It seems other classes are starting to flock to their OP builds and less and less people are easy kills for a mesmer burst.

Scepter trait still broke also.

So was this a nerf or buff?

1. Very much so.
2. Harmonious mantras!
3. No, stealth might be strong in a 1v1 but it is not as strong in conquest or wvw, being able to run away is not op.
4. No, I suck at inerrupts.
5. Have not tried Inspiration yet.
6. Both torch and staff require more work to get the same 20% just because there is the potential to get slightly more. I would just prefer the consistent 20%
7. No
8. No, cooldown is too long and it has a high chance to be wasted when you need to move.
9. I don’t recall, I guess I just target other classes first.

Let’s comprimise, increase the duration by 50% from 6 to 9 seconds. The burst damage stays reduced but the overal damage gets back to 75% of what it was. Or we can go back to 2 stacks for 4 seconds? instead of 6, more burst but only 66% of the original damage.

It’s true, the new streamlined Mesmer is a major boost to the enjoyment of the class. Thank you.

Superman is cheesy. Batman is pro.

Using staff more recently and the clones do more dps than the warlock. I’m not sure what he could use. Some utility, some condi damage, a much lower coolown?

The new torch Phantasmal Mage makes the warlock so jealous!

Basically what most are saying, 4 trait amulets.

1200 condi, 800 prec, 500 toughnes, 500 vit

The most OP trait in the game.

Squishy zerker QQ on forums.

Using celestial gear is a good idea in an unknown meta. Playing a glass cannon against unknown builds is asking for frustration.

The new PU gave 2 additional seconds of stealth on Torch and Decoy and 4 seconds on the elite. It does not suddenly make them completely OP, it does not give any sort of damage boost. It is a solid grand master now that encourages using multiple stealth skills to change your playstyle. Nerfing PU will not suddenly stop mesmers from stealthing and hitting hard.

Mesmer is a new class apparently.

Take a hint from MOBA’s. SMITE for example does bi-weekly balance patches of 5-15% adjustments MAX, this is how they try to keep the meta healthy and don’t push away players by crushing their playstyles. If you care about competitive pvp at all, this is how you have to do it. They also try to balance based on high level play, not around glass cannons with no condi cleanse qq’ing about being squishy.

WoW kicks classes in the balls every month and then three months later gives them a piece of candy then next month kicks them in balls again. Don’t be the WoW balance team. No one believes WoW pvp is anything close to balanced or competitive after 10+ years, there is only fotm, who was the last one to get buffs and how long will it last.

P.S. Re-buff MtD please. 50% reduction of a skill unchanged for many months, killed my playstyle on day 1.

To the ground!

For every burn skill multiply it by 3, then ask yourself if that was any other damaging condition if it wouldn’t be nerfed instantly.

Burning used to be special and allowed to have high dps because you couldn’t burst with it, now you can. Stacking burn as a group was never a thing in pvp before. Guardian, Ele, Engineer, and Warrior spraying fire everywhere is too much.

Carighan.6758:

Niminion.1982:

This needs to be re-added to the mediocre grand master scepter trait to prop up condi builds now that MtD is no longer a build-around trait.

Oh please not.
Of all the possible places I could want this, added to Malicious Sorcery wouldn’t be it. :s

I don’t think they want the trait to be available to all specs like it was in duelist and condi/scepter is hurting the most right now. It also fits thematically

There is no condi mesmer without MtD being a strong trait. There is no point in scepter or staff without condi build.

Landing shatters is not faceroll damage like how other classes click a button and numbers fly. Clones take time to create. Clones do not live long in group pvp, clones have a few seconds to run to their target before they fail. Shatter can be dodged easily as you see clones running at you. Shatter kills your passive damage from phantasms and clones. The new IP baseline adds MtD damage but puts the mesmer in melee range.

I seriously don’t know what to do with my mesmer anymore, if I wanted to play a melee power class I would not be playing mesmer. Please don’t make me play engineer or ranger…

Someone tell Robert Gee to stop schooling the other devs with mesmer and necro please!

This in no way addressed why MtD was crushed. MtD was the center piece to a condition build. It is now similar to the minor trait of confusing on shatter.

It was not buffed from the months and months it has been live and not competitive. It got one indirect buff from IP and instantly gets nerfed to the ground? You literally nerfed the build that got the least amount of buffs from the patch because condi QQ?

Without MtD being strong there IS NO MESMER CONDI BUILD.

Please increase the torment duration on MtD to give more sustained damage if burst was the issue and add confusing combatants to the incredibly bad and boring scepter grand master that replaced MtD!

This needs to be re-added to the mediocre grand master scepter trait to prop up condi builds now that MtD is no longer a build-around trait.

There is no way it will make it through this nerf gauntlet!

Josh Davis.6015:

The release has been out for 4 hours. It’s a little early to tell.

But not too early to nerf mesmers?

Levetty.1279:

JonPeters.5630:

Let’s be clear, this version of condition stacking and condi builds being viable in all games modes is a large part of our goal. We just want to make sure we don’t create imbalances that actually make the game less fun. Don’t expect huge balance swings, but rather our balance goal has always been to make more small adjustments.

Don’t expect huge balance swings except for the fact after a few hours of live you just killed Condi mesmers and stuck us stright back into power shatter only.

We don’t trust you.

Umm yeah wtf, 50% reduction would be classified as “HUGE” this was not a nerf this was outright deleting the condition mesmer for both pvp and pve.

I fully expect mesmers to be nerfed into the dirt before the release of HoT. I thought I was coming back to play a GW2 expansion but maybe not. Glad I haven’t pre-ordered.

This makes no sense.

If torment is that OP then scepter will be OP, using autos from clones and the block skill?

Ok so that’s one case for not wanting Diversion to shatter all your illusions on your current target.

Nothing I said would prevent phantasms attacking the target they were summoned to attack.

I still think DE clones should attack your current target instead of the closest target and Mind Wrack and Cry of Frustration should shatter all your illusions on your current target.

To be worthy of a grandmaster trait DE clones need to actually target your target not the closest thing when you dodge.

The trait is unreliable for shatters unless your in melee range. Yet another reason mesmer can not get away from using MH sword!

In a group fight if I dodge with a staff twice, and then hit shatter, with the same guy targeted the whole time, I have NO CONTROL over what is about to happen, clones run off in all directions to explode on whatever the kitten they feel like. Sorry the guy currently melting your face off, who would have died to your shatter is fine thanks to a ranger pet humping your leg and a thief who happened to be porting around when you dodged…

My dream would be all summon skills attack your current target when activated, and all shatter skills target your current target when activated. Why is mesmer still constantly fighting against their own mechanics?

The more armor skin sets in the store the more people will PAY to get the pieces they like and the more they will PLAY to get pieces that match.

One bad piece in an outfit can ruin it for most people.

One good piece in an armor skin set can sell it to a lot more people.

Balthazar is the only set I see worthy of being an entire outfit. If it’s not a complete transformation it should be a skin set.

And weapon dyes.

The dungeon armor sets and event sets mostly look nice and varied. Need more like them. Track sets, token sets, crafted sets w/e.

The outfits that are released in the store are a finished look. Buying an entire outfit does not make me want to go out to find any more pieces to craft that perfect look. Selling armor set skins will make me want to both PAY AND PLAY more.

The end game is a large part cosmetic, you can’t keep players interested by selling “done for you” cosmetic sets.

The weapons need to be able to be dyed, or I’m not going to buy anything unless it is the perfect fit, and that doesn’t happen often.

Be done with the cliche looks already, I get it I wear light armor so I’m always on my way to a fancy dance somewhere…

Weapons look great its really too bad the outfit looks like half the light armor in the game only green, and terrible on males as usual.

Can anyone there figure out how to make men look good in formal wear already!

The hardest concepts usually turn out to be some of the best in the end because more thought had to go into it.

Mesmer elite discussion. So we had this idea for chonomancer awhile back… everyone votes yes, next.

Warrior elite discussion. So what are we gonna do with warrior guys? Brainstorming session ensues that takes hours and eventually settles on something that feels new and interesting.

Spear and minions to make your own phalanx! F2 is minion adrenaline formation skill!

Honestly I don’t think they can screw up warrior, they aren’t really hurting for anything in particular so the devs are more free to create something interesting. Mesmer, Necro, Guard all had some gaps that needed to be filled.

The big question is will they keep it physical drawing from engineer, thief, and ranger, which warrior pretty much has covered already. Pet, stealth, kits, traps and turrets seem unlikely. Gadgets are ok but not really much different than physical skills and signets.

I think they might add a mystical element to warriors. Spirits, mantras and cantrips are all kind of minor mystical abilities that could fit and change the playstyle alot. Shaman, Monk, or Battlemage, type spec?

My hopefuls are pistol/gadgets, just because I like high tech stuff.
Or focus/mantras for a monk type feel, they recently buffed mantras to add extra toughness baseline for mesmers, and this would fit a tanky warrior even more.

No, warrior is special and will get the best elite spec ever. They don’t want to make the other classes jealous though by saying anything until the end.

The staff trait is also worded similarly, “Chaos armor grants protection.”

The other traits state something like “while wielding a greatsword” or “pistol attacks,” or “torch skills.”

I would give it a high chance to simply be, malicious sorcery buffs all torment damage, and also scepter cooldowns.

Being good when surrounded and being able to 5v1 are COMPLETELY different.

In a team fight on a point, reaper looks like a huge asset, you don’t want to pile on the reaper and you can’t just kite him or ignore him. Aoe stun, aoe fear, aoe chill, aoe condition transfer, aoe damage,solid healing and permanent shroud if not being focused!

Reaper looks like a team fight monster.

Zerker meta isn’t just about the 1 armor set. Half the weapons and traits in the game are considered trash because they don’t specialize in balls out crit based dps.

The downed state makes playing a glass cannon in pve very forgiving. Who cares if you get two shot you can be back up in a few seconds. Maybe lower the health regen from teamate revive in pve combat so it takes more effort or limit to one person. Or limit revives with a debuff after rally, or a stacking damage penalty on rally.

Or my favorite, make mobs try to stomp you! Force the team to interrupt and revive like in pvp. Make it risky for the party when someone goes down and the 0 defense meta might shift for a lot of people, but not kill speed runs for skilled players.

Tera as an example has what I would think of as a soft trinity. You have a tank and healer/support and some dps. The tank is there to keep aggro to position the mob and focus on active mitigation not necessarily just take all the damage. The healer can heal but the healing is less than the constant damage the mob is putting out, tanks and dps both need to use active defense and have enough health and armor, to mitigate enough damage for healing to keep them up. Healers also provide mana, essential buffs and debuffs for the party and marginal dps. There is in-combat rezzing but they take time and standing still can be very risky. When a tank goes down the party does not instantly wipe like wow, but the boss needs to be kited or off-tanked while he is rezzed and rebuffed. It is not impossible to do runs with no tank or healer but it is not optimal. Tera pve is not perfect but gw can look to it for some inspiration.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I think I “figured it out.”

If each reborn phantasm counts as summoning a phantasm and procs illusionary inspirtation, then… Offhand phantasm, Shield 4, deja vu, Shield 5 (interrupt and quickness), shatter —> proc II 3 times.

So that’s 3 seconds to your group with shield 5. 6 seconds on you if you time it right. Shatter then gives your team another 18 seconds because each chronophantasm summon gives 6 seconds each. 21 seconds for the group on a 30 second CD. Relatively renewable. Well of Action for another 3 seconds every 30 seconds that can give your teammates 9 more from chrono-II.

http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=mesmer&traits=“Domination”,2,6,9-“Inspiration”,2,4,8-“Chronomancer”,2,6,8

Illusionary inspiration had an internal cooldown last I saw.

Kelthien.8593:

Niminion.1982:

Yep its broke, f5 timewarp keeps quickness ticking for 20 seconds allowing everything else you do that gives a few seconds of quickness to start stacking. Add another mesmer who also does an f5 timewarp and by the end of 40 seconds of quickness you can pass 20 seconds of quickness and he will pass back that 20 plus his own amount add in some more skills and some alacrity and you might be able to out last the cooldown of timewarp!

Walk me through that again? I thought Time Warp does like… 10 pulses of 1s of quickness. So if you chain together 4 time-warps, you’ll have 40 consecutive pulses of 1s quickness and a leftover total of 0s of quickness. None left over to “pass back and forth”.

The exception would be huge boon duration stacking by both mesmers, though I’m not sure what the maximum % boon stacking is. There may also be a handy limit to how many stacks of Duration a particular boon can achieve. I thought Swiftness was 5 or 9 stacks maximum- it could work like that to prevent the “infinite” stacking issue.

With the stacking quickness changes that are currently planned for HoT

While standing in time warp I will gain 1 second of quickness every second. If I now get 3 seconds of quickness from an interrupt I have 4 seconds of quickness. As long as I keep getting 1 second of quickness per second during time warp I will not use those 3 seconds I got from the interrupt until time warp ticks stop.

Time warp alone doesn’t stack quickness, it lets you stack quickness from other sources.

So 20 seconds of time warp from a single mesmer is enough time to gain quickness from an interrupt or two, maybe 3 shatters, and 2 wells (1 from f5). With no interrupt quickness just 2 wells and 3 shatters that would be an easy 18 seconds of quickness you gained from spamming quickness abilites that was not used because you were still gaining 1 second per second from time warps. As soon as time warp drops you simply summon a phantasm and share your stacked quickness with your party. A single mesmer should be able to provide consecutive quickness for 30-40 seconds easily.

It should definitely have a cap of 10 seconds or lower.

Yep its broke, f5 timewarp keeps quickness ticking for 20 seconds allowing everything else you do that gives a few seconds of quickness to start stacking. Add another mesmer who also does an f5 timewarp and by the end of 40 seconds of quickness you can pass 20 seconds of quickness and he will pass back that 20 plus his own amount add in some more skills and some alacrity and you might be able to out last the cooldown of timewarp!

I am most excited about a Scepter MtD build when you add Seize the Moment and Illusionary Reversion, wow!

Shatter, get a clone back, auto attack with quickness for 2 more quick clones, all in melee range already, ready for another shatter. Keep shoving torment and confusion in your opponents face till it melts the kitten off. Block for more torment, bonus points for landing your IP shatter. Or do your carpet bombing from a safe distance if you prefer. Oh yeah your getting constant Alacrity along with your Quickness to quickly recharge those shatters, mind blown.

This core only uses Chrono and Illusions, with Scepter MH. I assume with a condi build you would want staff for your swap and you could use the Chaos tree and Torch PU for a large amount of defense. Or Bountiful Disillusionment and have stability + boons and use the shield for more block and a stun.

Maybe Dueling for some sweet crit conditions + constant applications of blind, with Harmonious mantras that become really attractive with possible quick charge times, 3 charges and shorter cooldowns. Covering torment with bleeds blind and confusion could be important.

Can’t wait to play with this stuff.

Great idea!

I would instantly put this on my to-do list, if it was implemented.

Someone rewound time to 2013!

Stacking wells and chaos storms on points will be fun I think. Then you rewind and do it again!

Just the ability to have utility skills that actually do damage will be nice.

I assume slow stacks duration so Lost Time should probably have a cooldown of 4 seconds. Please do not change the amount of crits needed just because of greatsword attack rate, or it will just make the trait suck for other weapons.

All’s Well that Ends Well, needs something that is always useful to your group everytime you drop a well, like Quickness or Alacrity. Or you could buff the trait a bit by converting a condition into a boon.

Chronophantasm, needs a bit more to be considered for a phantasm build, maybe phantasms have protection, or respawn on kill as well as on shatter? It feels like it is just another burst shatter skill rather than a skill for phantasm builds.

Flow of Time, should be minimum 1 sec per illusion shattered, ideally it would be nice as 4 seconds per shatter used. Then if your desperate for something to come off cooldown you can “waste” your shatters with IP. With a good MW rotation this would be around 25% uptime on Alacrity for average of 15% cooldown reduction? This also makes Improved Alacrity worth a look if your uptime is a consistent amount.