Guild Wars 2

TBF they did announce that there were a lot of changes made to the elites overall. But they didn’t say what changes were made, they just told us we were going to have to wait for release to find out

I think you misunderstand ProtoGunner. A lot of mesmer mains are critical because they care a lot about the class. They see problems with the class, and they see that mirage doesn’t address those problems, and it is upsetting.

I mean, look at chrono. 3 major traits were designed around reducing problems with shatters. 1 of them was designed to help the shatters land, since it was so easy to outrun them. And the other 2 were designed around trying to (in a very OP manner at first) reduce the negative impact that shattering had on our illusion mechanic. That’s 3 out of 9 major traits, 33% of them. Imagine how much more that class could have been if instead Anet had fixed those issues at the core mesmer level, and let chrono be a standalone spec that didn’t just bandaid mesmer problems? It would have had 3 more, very interesting, traits to play with. People, in general, stopped caring because Chrono was made overpowered at first, like every gen1 elite spec.

Now we get to mirage, that actually has the opposite problem. Nothing in mirage tries to fix problems with core mesmer, so these problems come glaring back at us. And now people are upset, because we really deserve to have these problems looked at and fixed. And mirage neither fixes them nor bandaids them.

What I think that you, and a lot of other mirage supporters, are missing is that a class CAN be fun to play without it being designed well. A lot of the complaints about mirage are coming from the fact that it was not designed well at all. And ANet admitted that to us when they admitted they designed it around the name instead of around the mechanic.

Levetty.1279:

If you have locked everything down, why don’t you tell us what changes you have made to the elite specs instead of expecting us to pre order a product with no idea what we are getting.

Because I bet some changes are underhwelming and they expect some players to be upset with them.

Sly.9518:

OriOri.8724:

They apply revealed because its supposed to be a counterplay, and then deadeye is allowed to just remove revealed at will, on a skill with the ammo system no less.

That’s nothing more than pure kitten, and asking to ignore invuln as well just shows that thieves don’t give a kitten about balance.

On a skill with a 1/2 sec cast time and ammo system that has two separate CDs built into it and only two charges.

And one last time Stealth doesn’t negate damage.

Not even close to a Invuln

Also more and more classes are getting reveals hell some Thief skills reveal themselves at cast now before the attack even hits

Soooooo OP ooooh noooo

It’s not like every Thief desnes doesn’t have a hard counter… oh wait every Defense Thief has has a hard counter ooooh shucks.

Let’s see

Evades- Wards
Stealth-Reveal(let’s not forget revealed is being handed out like candy)
Block-Unblockable

/gg

Good to see you’re just as stubborn as ever about thieves being crap.

First of all, invulns shut down every class that tries to burst, not just thief. Its not like only thiefs are hurt by these skills going off. Secondly, I agree with you guys that passive invuln application needs to be removed immediately. Thirdly, you keep dancing around the issue that thief is already the class that ignores the most mechanics in the game. You definitely don’d need to let them ignore another one.

Thief already ignores the CD increasing aspect of Chill on their weapon skills. Thief already ignores the CD increasing mechanic of power block on their weapon skills. Thief is the only class capable of using theri 2-5 skills in immediate succession if they want to (whether or not this is agood idea doesn’t change the fact they are the only class to do this). DD can ignore immobilize on dodge, even though immobilize is supposed to stop you from dodging away. And now deadeye can ignore revealed with their elite skill. Quit whining already. Thief already ignores more game mechanics than any other class. And no class needs to be ignoring invulnerability. That is the worst design choice the devs could ever make.

And I never said stealth was equivalent to invuln. I merely said that thieves can now ignore revealed, and should not be allowed to do so, since revealed is supposed to be the counter to stealth.

zealex.9410:

OriOri.8724:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Mitch.4781:

Well I’ve done 100, but the incentive to do the torture that is 100cm till completion isn’t there. It simply isn’t fun. It’s hilarious that 100cm is actually harder and more frustrating than ANY of the raid bosses. What happened to the stepping stone? Apart from anything else, the entire fractal takes forever. If this is the way fractals will be going in the future, I’ll avoid them.

We aren’t happy with how the length of Shattered Observatory ended up either. It ended up being out of whack with the standard fractal experience for most players. We are taking a lot of things into consideration for the next fractal.

If you think its a bit too long can you not just decrease the health of each boss slightly? As it is, its mostly just fighting the 3 bosses, with a few random parts thrown in.

Yeah its not like theres alot of meat outside the bosses in this encounter. And ppl can already skip the islands to shorten it.

Eh, there was another post below mine that had better suggestions than just cutting HP. More along the lines of shortening the “extra” parts of each boss fight. Those do take more time than I originally gave consideration for.

Don’t have time right now, but for kittening around in open world PvE, chaos/illusions and mirage should be funnish.

ProtoGunner.4953:

I play Mirage, I had a lot of fun playing it. Watch WPs video, it really shows a lot of synergies etc. I don’t know why Mirage has such a negative backlash. If I never was in the forums, I though everyone is excited about it. I first planned to max out scourge but I think I go with Mirage be cause it was so much fun.

But there aren’t that many synergies if you look closer than a superficial glance. Mirage itself focuses on ambush attacks and confusing people with your clones acting like you, yet it has 2 traits that encourage shattering, without actually buffing shatters.

Mirage depends on clones to achieve the role it was sold on (confusing foes with clones), yet it offers the worst clone generating trait mesmer has.

Mirage is built around the mirage cloak, yet its 1 utility skill with an evade uses an actual evade, instead of the mirage cloak for more synergy.

Mirrors are a mixed bag, but there isn’t any synergy with them. No synergy with core mesmer traits at all. And not a single mirage trait that buffs them. The only trait we have that directly affects mirrors only gives us a chance at creating them, in return for shattering, which means we just lost all of our ambush fodder.

Please point to where this amazing synergy is that mirage has? I can see it being fun to play with staff running illusions/chaos/mirage. But just because it might be fun doesn’t mean it has the amazing synergy that WP sold it as.

zealex.9410:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Unless there has been some drastic, hidden changes, then no, Anet will not fix the Mirage. Our fears have come true.

“drastic” care to give an example?

Complete overhaul of the mirror mechanic would certainly count as drastic at this stage. Changes to ambush attacks could be considered “drastic” as well depending on how much some of them were changed (if they were changed). But I think he meant more along the lines of rethinking the mechanic entirely, which we will not get so close to release.

Slow projectile is fine in PvE, its next to useless in PvP environments. Plus, I can’t agree with auto attacks being that strong, they should be a bit of constant pressure, renewing stacks of condis, used to burn through aegis/blind etc… They shouldn’t be overly strong attacks.

And yes, I do want mirror, axe and ambush buffs (all 3), but that won’t solve anything for core mesmer, which is why I do think that staff does need a rework.

They apply revealed because its supposed to be a counterplay, and then deadeye is allowed to just remove revealed at will, on a skill with the ammo system no less.

That’s nothing more than pure kitten, and asking to ignore invuln as well just shows that thieves don’t give a kitten about balance.

No. Deadeyes already get to ignore revealed with their elite, that’s more than enough.

But I agree that the passive application of invuln skills through traits needs to be removed. These skills are stupidly powerful, and should have to be manually cast.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Mitch.4781:

Well I’ve done 100, but the incentive to do the torture that is 100cm till completion isn’t there. It simply isn’t fun. It’s hilarious that 100cm is actually harder and more frustrating than ANY of the raid bosses. What happened to the stepping stone? Apart from anything else, the entire fractal takes forever. If this is the way fractals will be going in the future, I’ll avoid them.

We aren’t happy with how the length of Shattered Observatory ended up either. It ended up being out of whack with the standard fractal experience for most players. We are taking a lot of things into consideration for the next fractal.

If you think its a bit too long can you not just decrease the health of each boss slightly? As it is, its mostly just fighting the 3 bosses, with a few random parts thrown in.

dchsknight.3042:

CutesySylveon.8290:

Kahrgan.7401:

dchsknight.3042:

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

Found the revenant player.

The overwhelming majority of rev players I spoke to called it trash as well. If you think Renegade is ‘one of the most finished’ then have to call BS.

I am a pve player not a pvp. So I could care less what PVP players think of a class.

Its couldn’t care less. Saying you could care less implies that you do, in fact, care what the PvP players think

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Check out the video at https://redd.it/6yq0w1, which compares the renegade’s F3 skill for plain weapons, bolt, and shining blade. (That skill was chose to highlight the differences.)

Bolt is a flashier sword, full of sound & fury, but signifying little when it’s thrown. The Shining Blade is a more understated weapon with more pyrotechnics when thrown. I think that makes Bolt more fun as a melee-focused weapon, so more appealing to mesmers while Shining Blade generates the better projectiles, e.g. for Renegade.

In the end, you’ll have to decide for yourself.

They are supposedly working on new projectiles for bolt. Personally I hope that they don’t keep the mini swords, but instead make it lightning based projectiles. It would fit the theme of the sword very well.

ProtoGunner.4953:

I see the complains now and remember the TEMPEST being one shamed class before release. Only to be one of the most popular and powerful specs this game ever saw after the HoT release. Remember my words. Mirage will be back to full POWER (of love and passion).

People are just acting immature towards the fact that the mirage didn’t have any new F-skill and/or other mechanics.

These two are not even comparable. Not to mention Tempest was so popular because it was buffed to be extremely overpowered.

@Tseison – I think it would be really nice for chaos storm to have a much longer duration. If you want to keep it at a 35s CD but increase the duration to 8 seconds that would also work. It would apply longer pressure on enemies with the dazes for sure. Not sure about multiple conditions, dazes, and boons at once. However, maybe it could get a treatment similar to plaguelands, where each tick is a random condition/boon, but the last tick gives out all conditions to enemies and all boons to allies? That would make it stronger, and the increased duration (again 7-8 seconds) would make it a pretty good skill for a 35s base CD in my opinion.

Winds of chaos, while weak, is still just an auto attack. If the after-cast delay is reduced significantly (think cutting 1/3 of a second off of it), and the speed of the projectile increased I actually think it would be in a good spot. Right now it takes about 1.3 seconds to get off 1 auto attack for minimal pressure. Cutting the after-cast delay so much would increase the speed of the attack to 1 second, and then an increased projectile speed would be a pretty significant buff. Considering its just an auto attack I’d rather leave it there for a bit and re-evaluate later if it needs further buffs.

And I don’t understand how you don’t see the defensive parts of the staff. Phase retreat is amazing. You have strong synergy with the chaos and illusion lines, giving you high uptime on protection and regen. When fully traited we have phase retreat on a 6s CD and phantasmal warlock on a 11.5s CD. This gives us a decent amount of shadder fodder, makes it easy to get illusions up for the damage reduction in the chaos line, as well as gives us phase retreat on a 6 second CD.

TexZero.7910:

OriOri.8724:

Honestly we’ll be extremely lucky to get 3k out of it. Don’t even dream of anything close to 8-9k

Out of curiosity i went and ran the math for unique AP released after HoT that is still obtainable.

Using those parameters got 2912 AP so if PoF is more of an expansion and less feature heavy then 3k is reasonable and probably not even out of the question.

You seem to be counting all of the AP that was released during HoT, and every release since then in the past 2 years. So in total, with both an expansion AND 2 years worth of content we got less than 3k AP.

So yes, its entirely unreasonable to expect 3k AP from PoF. Maybe from PoF + LWS4 + 2 years of current events (though a decent chunk of the AP added since HoT was in 1 time PvP achievs for the new class and the map specific ones (about 500 total), and we won’t see something similar for PoF).

Several staff skills really needs to be looked at and adjusted I feel, and not via traits but adjustments to the actual skills. Looking at staff, its a defensive weapon (phase retreat) that can stack some condis and give us some interrupts via chaos storm and gives us easy access to chaos armor. So build on those aspects of it

• Chaos storm needs a CD of 25-30 seconds, instead of 35 seconds.
• The auto attack’s aftercast delay needs to be significantly reduced
• The speed of the auto attack projectile should be increased by 50-100%
• Winds of Chaos should have less randomness to it. Have vuln be applied every strike to enemies, with 1 of the 2 damaging conditions being applied at random. If it strikes allies, have it apply 2s of regen every strike to allies and also either might or fury. This guarantees that it deals a damaging condition to enemies if it strikes them
• Chaos armor (the skill not the aura), needs its CD lowered a bit more. This skill is lackluster in that its a 30sec CD on just applying an aura, but I don’t agree with adding a secondary effect, so reduce the CD slightly. If necessary, reduce the duration of chaos armor from this skill to 4 sec to balance.

Honestly we’ll be extremely lucky to get 3k out of it. Don’t even dream of anything close to 8-9k

Amaimon.7823:

Well, here’s to hoping Path of Fire comes with a big bowl of APs

Judging from the demo weekend, it won’t. The achievements followed the same path as HoT, giving out pitiful amounts of AP

It would be really cool to have! Unfortunately, Anet has made comments in the past (I can try to find them, but the search function on these forums is quite bad), where they say its not feasible with how the engine works right now.

I don’t think they ever went into details about why it won’t be possible, but they have told us they can’t easily do this.

I think a compromise is that when you cast portal exeunt, a “test portal” is internally deployed without using up your skill, if you are within range and you can use the portal, then the real one is dropped, otherwise if the “test portal” is out of range and is unusable, then your skill does nothing, or flashes red and doesn’t go on CD or something.

Yea I knew about the cannon phase, but she was still stacking ridiculous amounts of bleed through shield 4. Admittedly I wasn’t paying attention to whether she was auto attacking or doing the spinning attack, but the bleeds were still being stacked.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Axl.8924:

Mai trin seems overpowered, i can beat chaos observatory nightmare, yet mai trin gives me trouble when you get the cannon part.it seems completely random and i can’t seem to survive.

It might need another nerf to be in line with the others.

The cannons target each player. Just spread out from everyone else and dont run around all crazy. Just step out of the AoEs and only use your dodge when you really need it to get to a safe spot, and it becomes a really easy phase.

Also don’t facetank mai trin’s attack unless you have a condi cleanse, since she stacks crazy bleeding stacks on you. Stay close to her, but try to be behind her when you can.

Are mai trin’s attacks unblockable? Yesterday I was running it on my chrono for the first time in a long time, and tried to block her attacks with Shield4, yet it kept stacking bleed stacks and dealing damage to me, and no block messages appeared.

maddoctor.2738:

Doggie.3184:

maddoctor.2738:

Tip for those jumping puzzles: use a mesmer, or even better, a necromancer character

Why Necro?

This makes JPs much easier as a necromancer: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Walk

It has a lower cooldown than Portal AND it can protect you from many missed jumps that Portal cannot (if the fall leads to your death)

40 sec CD on spectral walk traited, compared to mesmer’s ability to double portal with mimic, or triple portal with CS. If you suspect you’ll be making more than 1 failed attempt at a particular spot in the puzzle, then chrono is a better choice than necro if you can get your glider out to avoid dying on the way down.

As to not so secret itself. I have found the jump pads fairly unreliable on my laptop, so I just avoid the puzzle.

Randulf.7614:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Randulf.7614:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Jahroots.6791:

I gotta applaud anyone who can figure out the mechanics in the clusterkitten that is fractal 100. The first fellow’s alright, but the second boss just has way too much going on at once.

Even on normal mode, she’s actually a fair bit harder than many raid encounters.

Viirastra has 2 core mechanics:
1. Stand in the bubble when you have the skull
2. Bounce the marble on your head (only 1 person needed, backup helpful)

If you do these two mechanics correctly, the rest of the fight is pretty easy. Failing these two mechanics quickly snowballs the fight to failure.

There are also two minor mechanics:
1. Don’t stand in the AoEs (You can jump over many of them)
2. Kill the big clones, then drag the little ones to the boss.

Doing these two mechanics reduces the damage pressure to almost nothing.

Theres a bit more to the fight, but this is the core that will allow you to succeed in non CM.

If you are failing the marble, try lower tiers. The marble pattern is significantly easier. Also note that when the marble bounces on your head, it refreshes your SAS. Your SAS is OP and you should use it to move around.

Edit: If your group is learning, try having everyone do the marble at once. There is no time pressure on non CM, and doing the marble gives you lots of aegis and invulnerability so you can stay alive.

Out of curiosity, was is the thought behind the marble mechanic? To me, it didn’t feel an organic part of the fractal itself, more a random mechanic added, because more mechanics were felt to be needed.

I think that is what set this apart for me – the mechanics didn’t gel with what was going on around. Much of the other fractals work a) because they are short bursts and b) because the mechanics are organic to the environment. This felt too random or out of place if that makes sense.

Viirastra is innocent and playful, and literally thinks she is playing a game with the players, so marbles made thematic sense. Plus, the marble mechanic combines perfectly with the SAS skill, which brings the joy of movement in this fight to an entirely new level.

I can just about see that from what you are saying. I can’t say I agree it has translated well into the encounter, especially combined with all the other mechanics across the fractal that don’t quite mesh well together, but I appreciate you giving us a bit of context behind the design.

IDK man, I thought that this came through quite readily in the encounter. I mean, she’s openly talking about playing a game, and complaining about how the previous dude didn’t want to play. I rather like that flavor.

I also really like this fractal a lot. The mechanics of the second fight are by far my favorite, and its because of the marble.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

People thought ANet ignored mounts and of course, turns out ANet’s been working on them for years, long before PoF. They just hadn’t figured out all the details and, per their practice, didn’t mention it until it was nearly ready to ship.

Accordingly, all we can say is that PoF includes a lot of features, some of which we wanted, some of which we didn’t know we wanted, and some which people will claim no one wanted. Likewise, it lacks some features that we’ve wanted for ages, including build templates — but some of those have been requested for over 5 years (since BETA testing).

Not seeing the features in PoF doesn’t mean ANet’s ignored us; it just means that they aren’t in the game today (or next month).

I feel like there hasn’t been as much of a clamor for mounts as there has been for build templates. It was about equal between mounts and a homestead. Honestly before I was on the side that felt mount detracted from the game but they did implement it in a creative way that that surprised me in a good way. While I give them kudos for how they did mounts I feel it did detract from fundamental features needed like build templates and sidelined a player homestead or my preferred idea of a Dragon’s Watch guild hall.

It’s hard to tell if ANet is ignoring us or just keeping quite on features because so many people post suggestions or topics about some requested features just boil to the surface during general posts yet we hear little from ANet.

I understand the whole argument of how they can’t keep responding to people but they have PR people who’s job it is to interact with players. Despite if they intend to use suggestions or not, it’d be nice interaction if they did some kind of suggestion of the week or month tag. That way they could nudge suggestions to the surface to encourage players to discuss aspects of the idea. It would give the devs a jump start if they ever decided to use it and make players feel less like they are interacting with a brick wall.

I don’t think build templates were as important as mounts were internally. If you think about it, objectively, mounts not only add something completely new to the game, they also revolutionize a very common MMO feature and make it absolutely stunning and incredible. Adding mounts to the game actually added something unique to the game. Build templates are, at their core, nothing more than QoL.

While I love QoL, and would love to see build templates implemented, I can completely understand why a QoL feature would be deemed less important than something as amazing as the mount system we did get.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. There’s no real reason to remove proofs of heroics from the skirmish chest imo, it would be better to offer both, or offer them the option to choose 1 or the other. So since heroics are getting flat out removed, there’s nothing saying they weren’t also flat out removed from rank up chests, though I really hope they weren’t.

Vegeta.2563:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Kitta.3657:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Serenity.6135:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We will be adding a new currency that is similar to Proof of Heroics that will allow you to buy new sigils, runes, recipes, and hero points from PoF.

Awesome, thank you!

One more question, will these be available in skirmish chests, like proofs of heroics?

There will be a new skirmish chest with the new currency in them.

Will that new chest replace the old ones in a retroactive manner?

All skirmish chests earned before PoF launch will contain Proof of Heroics. All skirmish chests earned after will have the new currency.

Are the proof of heroics themselves being retired or are both going to be available in the new chest… also ranking up in WvW, does that provide the new currency or the old?

I also would like to know the answer to this question. I don’t think I agree with just flat our removing proofs of heroics completely. I mean, some players are just now going to be buying HoT when they buy PoF. It wouldn’t be fair to them to not allow them to gain proofs of heroics.

hugo.4705:

Yep comparing characters height and mount seat and chairs are almost the same. Don’t see why they can’t apply this new mechanics of mount to chairs… Maybe too difficult or simply not their priority?

You do realize that mounts are summoned from thin air when you mount them? Chairs are already in the world, it would completely break immersion if the chair magically grew 300% instantly to accommodate a large norn sitting down, or vice versa for a tiny asura trying to jump into it.

Its not remotely the same thing.

PistolWhip.2697:

Ahlen.7591:

PistolWhip.2697:

Ahlen.7591:

Spellbreaker 2/10. The only bonus of spellbreaker is it’s great at stacking might and removing boons. Other warrior specs/traits can already stack might fine and boon removal is mostly pointless in PVE (Some niche in higher fractals).

The spec removes synergy with adrenal health, berserker power, and cleansing ire, the damage on counter is DISTURBINGLY low. 4k crit counters at 3000 power and 230% crit damage? My axe already does that kind of damage on just auto crits.

For SB to work adrenal/BP/Cleansing need a rework and daggers need a massive damage buff.

Oh god no. SPellbreaker was actually one of the strongest PvP elite specs and could go toe to toe with the monsters that were Scourge and Holosmith.

Damage isn’t as important as the aoe interrupt/damage mitigaton/resistance/condi transfer and boon rip all on a tiny CD of 6 seconds. It is quite an amazing skill, it’s not anyone’s fault you only play one game mode.

Spellbreaker was one of the strongest things in the beta weekend, primarily due to FC

PVE is the most popular game mode and is also balanced separately from WvW and PVP.

Spellbreaker is liquid hot crap garbage in PVE, and I could not care less about PVP or WvW.

2/10.

Popularity doesn’t mean balance priority. PvP is a lot more intensive and competitive than PvE, which means you need to centralise balance around it. PvE you can run whatever you want in almost every content, which by it’s casual nature allows for leniency.

Sure, you may not like it, that’s perfectly fine, but buffing it across the board is not the answer, and you hadn’t made it clear your desire to split balance.

I don’t really care what they do with SB in PvE, do as they wish, but PvP and WvW should be separate in this, kitten is already one of the strongest E-specs.

I would however also argue this is ANET’s intention, because Bersekrer was a largely PvE spec, they added a PvP spec next. Just look at Scrapper. It was a PvP spec for Engi, and now they have Holosmith which seems like it could be viable in PvE.

This is such a load of bullcrap. First, PvP is not more important than PvE is.Balancing priority should be given to the game mode drawing the most money in, and that’s almost guaranteed to not be PvP. Its probably WvW honestly. Secondly, balance should never be “centralized” around a certain game mode. This is the worst way to achieve balance. It should be split up between all 3 game modes to start with. And it should be balanced individually for each game mode. The balancing problems that ANet has suffered from stem in no small part from their reluctance to do full balance splits between the game modes. I mean hell, 80% of their PvP splits end up being merged in the end anyway.

Thirdly, you can run anything you want in PvP just the same as you can in PvE. Its utter bullcrap to tell people that they can run anything they want in PvE because it still kills things. Well going by that logic you can run anything you want in PvP because you will still kill players you are better than. Just because you can run it in PvE does not make it a good idea to run it in PvE. That is the same as PvP.

@Zealex – Do you think mirage doesn’t need to be reworked? Not even mirrors and ambush attacks? Can you tell us truthfully that the traitline is cohesive, has internal synergy, has synergy with core mesmer traits and is overall a very strong traitline?

@OP -Mirage cloak in and of itself is a great mechanic. I actually really love it. The only things that it needs aren’t improvements to mirage cloak itself but the sources of it. We could stand to gain a bit more mirage cloak (maybe 1 second like others have suggested, or alternatively have superspeed to work while going backwards and sideways to still take us to max movement speed), possibly have a longer window for ambush attacks, have better ambush attacks. But the cloak itself is fine imo

Artyport.2084:

Ohoni.6057:

Spoken like someone who doesn’t main Mesmer and does give a kitten perfectly.

Yes.

Go complain about what you dislike about your own main class and leave other classes to people who have actually played (and suffered on) them for the last 5 years.

Will do, but I play a lot of classes, and of the nine available, the Mirage is one of the few new specs that I plan to be playing around launch. I’m still on the fence about running Deadeye instead of Daredevil, but Mirage I like.

Not even going to comment on the argument that weaker utility skills from elites compared to core utility skills are fine since one doesn’t have to use them. Pure bias confirmed right there.

It’s just the nature of the game. I main a Thief, I only used one DD Utility over the past year. I also like Guard, I ran Dragon Hunter with no Longbow. I played Tempest without Warhorn, Scrapper with only the med-bot and hammer, Herald without Shield, etc. You don’t have to like every element of a spec to like the spec itself, and Utilities are the lowest priority since you have 20+ other options for each slot, many of which work fine with the new specs.

You don’t like the new spec? That’s fine. My liking it doesn’t mean that you have to. You want changes made? That’s fine, me liking the current base doesn’t mean I would hate any positive changes made. I really don’t get why Mesmers are so freaked out by people actually liking this spec.

No offense.. but people who play this class as a main are looking for more than just a few minutes of fun. They are looking for it to play effectively on top of being just FUN.
I main Mesmer and it is really fun but its lacking purpose on top of having some really messy execution. and the traits… omg the traits.. UGH

Exactly. Its clear who doesn’t main a mesmer in this thread. They get on mirage, have a few minutes of fun teleporting around PvE enemies and call it a huge success. They can’t even see the problems the spec has. I mean Ohoni just basically said that he agrees with the flaws I pointed out, and yet he then ignored them because the class was still able to kill mobs.

@Ohoni, try to use Axe 2 to reliably summon clones in a competitive environment and then tell me it doesn’t have problems. Clone generation should be automatic when that skill lands, and that’s not even bringing up the fact that it should be a short evade to cover our ass while we are vulnerable.

Mesmer mains are “freaked out” by people enjoying the spec because you are the ones ANet will look to when they look into actually fixing mirage, and then they won’t. You guys either can’t see or just ignore the problems that the spec has and call it amazing, because you don’t actually play it. You just logon for a few minutes of fun, not caring about how effective or buggy it is.

Jaunt has an ammo mechanic, so what? That doesn’t justify a 400 range shadowstep. Should be 600 range.

Our utilities are simply not good. Its not a matter of them being useful in niche scenarios (which would be fine for an elite spec, if it was designed to fill that niche role), its a matter of them just actually sucking.

Crystal sands deals low damage to begin with, but that damage is spread out between 6 shards that are buggy with terrain and can all be dodged. Seriously, 6 shards in a circle that large is pathetic. The power damage should go baseline to the AoE field, and the shards should just apply confusion, along with increasing the number of shards. That’s not “just a numbers tweak”

Sand through glass is a 30sec CD stunbreak that spawns a mirror for a pathetic attack. Blink is a 30 sec CD stunbreak that gives us the ability to choose where we go, and can be traited for CD reduction. Sand through glass is a strictly worse version of blink right now, and its mostly because mirrors are terrible. Furthermore, the evade it gives should be a 1/2 sec mirage cloak to synergize with the spec itself. I mean, really, no reason for that to be a regular evade instead of a mirage cloak. I’ll even give you this one. Changing evade to mirage cloak can count as “just a numbers change”, but fixing mirrors definitely does not fall under that category.

Mirage advance is ok, but it would be better if we could use it when out of range and just use it as a gap closer, even if the range has to be reduced slightly to 750. It should also be a 1/2 sec cast.

Illusionary ambush has lots of bugs but otherwise is ok.

Taking a look at the traits is where the bigger problems show. There’s no cohesion. There’s no focus. They aren’t good. There’s little to no synergy in the line. Most of them are average at best. Mirage was sold on the idea of performing ambush attacks with your clones to confuse enemies, so why do we have to trait for that when it was sold as a core mechanic of the class? This class is just full of design problems. And it shows if you take more than just a passing interest in the colors and the intention behind the mechanics.

Jaunt is classified as a shadowstep according to its description.

Ohoni.6057:

The axe skills looks impressive for sure, but still have their problems. Namely they are really weak in general, and mesmers didn’t need another weak weapon.

Again though, “is it good enough?” maybe not. I certainly wouldn’t kick a buff out of bed, yeah, it’s fun to play, so if it’s not strong enough, they should fix that, but it’s not hard to fix that, you just change a few numbers in a table and you’re done. That’s a way smaller problem than something like the Firebrand or Renegade which are non-functional at a fundamental level.

Also I should make clear that I don’t care about PvP, so additional tweaks might be necessary there.

I mean if your idea of fun involves a mechanic that works against itself then sure, mirage is fun to play.

Look I say this is as someone who genuinely loves mesmer, and I really, really want to love mirage. The axe skills ARE fun. They really are fun skills. And if axe 2’s clone generation was fixed to be tied to the skill itself, then you are right, the weapon would only need number tweaks and some bug fixes on axe 3 to be a good weapon. But that is not all of the problems that mirage faces.

Our elite is fun to use, hopping in and out. But its a 400 range leap on a 20 second CD per charge. A single blink, with just 24 sec CD traited, has the same range as blowing through every charge on jaunt, yet blowing through all those charges would require a 60 second CD to get them back. Blink is also a stunbreak while Jaunt is not.

The deceptions skills sound fun, but ultimately are not. 1 of them is a worse version of blink. Crystal sands is a neat concept but falls ridiculously flat in its implementation. Mirage advance could actually be really good with some number tweaks, and illusionary ambush could be amazing with bug fixed, but those are really the only 2 skills that don’t need more than number tweaks.

Not to mention, you have yet to defend the actual mechanics of mirage. More specifically, how poorly planned and implemented they are. Our ambush attacks need to be rethought. Mirrors need to be redesigned (number tweaks will make them useable, but it won’t make them a good mechanic by any means). We need way more endurance regeneration considering we now use our dodges defensively and offensively (again, DD does this to some degree and it got an extra 50 endurance on top of literal kitten tons of endurance regeneration. Mirage got vigor on shatter and that’s it, yet shatters also destroy our ambush attack fodder. Go figure…..).

The spec was not designed cohesively. I don’t know how I can put it any more clearly. You might enjoy it, but that doesn’t change that it was just designed poorly. And it shows.

@Esplen – They are sold as a main mechanic, so they should act as one. Do they actually retarget clones though? I thought they just gave them mirage cloak, which in and of itself does not retarget them (I didn’t get the chance to play either of the stress tests).

Also, even in melee range, 4 seconds is not long enough duration. That’s not enough time to get another clone out if you are trying to buff up an IH ambush attack unless you are using scepter. 4 seconds is enough time to basically use them instantly.

Ohoni.6057:

How are you people giving mirage such a high score if you don’t even like its main mechanics of mirrors and ambushes? Quick comparison of mirage to other 2nd gen elite specs

I really love the axe skills and the teleporting around. The ambushes I like in principle, but don’t know enough to judge whether they’re strong enough. Might need tweaking. The mirrors are a bit of a dud to me, but I’m fine with that, not every element has to be a winner.

The axe skills looks impressive for sure, but still have their problems. Namely they are really weak in general, and mesmers didn’t need another weak weapon. Axe 2 doesn’t reliably summon a clone either, due to the summon being tied not to the skill itself, but to the enemy being “close to” (whatever the kitten that means) a mirage that is left at your starting position when you cast it, when the mirage expires. The clone summon should be tied to casting the skill itself and simply hitting an enemy with it. Since it isn’t, Axe is pretty kitten poor at clone generation in PvP environments since they can walk away from it.

Ambush skills are full of problems. Take too long to cast (seriously, some of them outlast the duration of mirage cloak, and since scepter roots us, it leaves us wipe open for attack if we want to finish it). Don’t deal nearly enough damage. Should be given to clones baseline, even if they don’t deal any damage without taking IH (this is to tie into the whole “confuse your enemies” “mechanic” the spec is supposed to work around). Ambush attacks don’t work with phantasms, so we can’t use phantasms at all if we want to take full advantage of IH (seriously, no trait should make 1/5 of your weapon skills worse ). Clones are still paper thin…….

The spec was designed around a name, not a mechanic or role. And its quite evident. Mesmer players deserve better. GW2 players deserve better honestly. Even if you don’t main mesmer you shouldn’t be ok with content being implemented like that. It should be designed well, cohesively, and it should definitely not be thrown in at the last minute because a dev sees it and thinks it looks cool.

Amethyst Lure.5624:

I kinda think the design process for anything mesmer suffers from how easily it snowballs into OP territory. Therefore I think numbers are just something to ignore for now and comment on how the mechanic itself would work if the number was appropriate.

For instance, how would Ambushes be if they were tuned up? I think they would be fine personally. Mirrors… not as big a fan there, I don’t think just numbers make them more attractive as such.

The point about snowballing stems from a fundamentally flawed class mechanic. Anet needs to just redesign our class mechanic in its entirety, from the ground up, on the core class.

I have to disagree with mirrors lasting long enough. I was not able to participate in the stress test, but unless they buffed the duration, 4 seconds is nowhere near enough time.

drcraig.9403:

CrashTheGrey.1492:

Amaimon.7823:

drcraig.9403:

OriOri.8724:

drcraig.9403:

ButterPeanut.9746 I expect you’re correct on both counts. At this point with almost 90 views I got exactly what I expected. No replies other than yours. Goes to show, nobody is treated as poorly as the Warrior.

You’re kidding right?

Well no, I’m not. The fact that you offered absolutely nothing to refute my claim speaks volumes. Thanks for your complete lack of substance. Please take the last word, I’ve already wasted enough time on you.

“I made an argument so vague that you can only say ‘what?’. And now that you said that I can say you can’t refute my claims. I win”

Would have been 10/10 roast if you added a tips fedora at the end.

I main warrior. ArenaNet has been massively incompetent over the years in so many areas/classes, and for long periods of time, warrior has been very strong/too strong. Ori doesn’t need to make an argument because the overwhelming inaccuracy of “nobody is treated as poorly as warrior” is hilarious.

Warrior is certainly in a horrid spot, but come on, ArenaNet treats most classes with complete ineptitude at random. I think the real hilarious bit is how awful warrior was already before that berserker nerf.

Sorry but saying you don’t need to make an argument, isn’t an argument. If you read my original post, I clearly ask for feedback from other professions. If Anet has taken your “Elite”, whatever it may be, and made it a complete joke I’d be interested in hearing it.

Lastly, until someone lists all the things I have to be happy about as a warrior main. I stand by my statement, nobody treated worse than a warrior. What other professions have be nerfed to the scrap heap?

Oh yeah, please don’t remind me how great Burnzerker was for those 2 or 3 months. I don’t care for condi builds.

Look at mirage then…. This is why I can’t take you seriously. If you want to see a profession treated badly then look no further than mesmers. Our own class mechanic works against itself. Our kittening elite spec was designed around a name instead of a mechanic. We count ourselves lucky to not receive a nerf in every balance patch.

drcraig.9403:

ButterPeanut.9746 I expect you’re correct on both counts. At this point with almost 90 views I got exactly what I expected. No replies other than yours. Goes to show, nobody is treated as poorly as the Warrior.

You’re kidding right?

Blink isn’t actually a teleport, its just moving you at the maximum game speed from one location to another. This means that if you can’t walk there, you can’t blink there, it doesn’t matter if you can jump there if you can’t walk there.

Blink also has a much larger range than 1,200 on the “effective walking distance” (I think its around 5,000 units?), which is why you can use it to “teleport” across a gap if there is a bridge close-ish that you could have walked down to and then across without jumping.

How are you people giving mirage such a high score if you don’t even like its main mechanics of mirrors and ambushes? Quick comparison of mirage to other 2nd gen elite specs

Mirage doesn’t give us a new F skill. Only 2nd gen elite spec that didn’t do that other than ele, who didn’t get a new attunement, but can now use 2 at once.

Mirage turned its dodges into an offensive tool, yet didn’t get the extra 50 endurance or ridiculous endurance regen that DD got, despite our dodges being worse than DD’s dodges.

Mirage was literally built around a name, not a mechnanic or playstyle. They kittening admitted that. Its the only 2nd gen elite spec to be designed around a name, with no high level design for the class surrounding its mechanic.

Mirrors were literally added to the game because a dev saw them and thought they looked pretty, not because the devs had any clue as to how the mechanic should work. Again, in that same video they kittening admitted this.

Its a joke of an elite spec. It relies on clones, yet takes no measures to make them any stronger than paper. Its clone generation trait is very restrictive and also worse than what core mesmer got, not to mention what chrono could pump out. Mirrors are a trash mechanic right now. They need an entire overhaul really, because they need a comprehensive design as a mechanic instead of what we got, which was “OMG! That looks amazing insert artist name here, lets place that in the game for mirage!”

Add onto that the fact that it makes our class mechanic even more self-contradictory in that it focuses entirely on clones. If you are building for an ambush build (even though they are crap skills for the investment required) then we cannot use our phantasm skills because they don’t have ambush attacks. We can’t even give them mirage cloak. Shattering still destroys our clones, leaving us without ambush attack fodder.

The spec is a mess. Just because it might be flashy with the purple, and it might be fun to kitten around with it in PvE does not make it a good spec. Its riddled with core design problems, because they didn’t design it around a playstyle or a mechanic. They literally didn’t know what they wanted mirage to be when they designed it, and it shows very clearly when you look at the skills and traits.

As a mesmer main it gets a 3/10 from me, and that’s because I really love the animations.

Mirage needs to be actually designed around a mechanic or playstyle instead of the name. It needs to be redesigned by Anet before it will get any higher of a score.

@TheGrimm – You got it. The solution to this problem is for Anet to actually implement better ways for us to manage our inventories. A tonic wardrobe and keychain would be the biggest two things.

Besides, notice how I never mentioned something being junk. I only said that people who max out their bank tabs and feel like they need more space are just having trouble with inventory management.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

There’s a reason why thieves/rogues/ninjas were masters of mobility. If he runs, you won that engagement. If you get beat, then learn to adapt your playstyle. There is much init waste when SB 5-ing away. I’m far from perfect at any class, however I get better because I know how to adapt :p

Considering you don’t get points for the other player running away, no you didn’t win. At best you can call that a stalemate. People don’t like thief because they can beat it in a fight, yet the thief can disengage so easily that it can slip away from a fight where it was beaten, and then come back later.

pico.6402:

takatsu.9416:

White Mantle Mesmers have that intimidating looking multiple GS3 purple stabby aoe…

This should be our ambush on GS in my opinion.

It really should be.

Curunen.8729:

I honestly think there should be a trait, maybe even a minor trait that removes movement impairing conditions when you dodge (ie cripple/chill/immobilise), like Daredevil’s Unhindered Combatant trait does.

It would fit thematically too.

It would fit thematically. It would also be something nice, so we won’t get that.

Its fine if thief, the class that already had the highest mobility, gets something like that according to most players. But they wouldn’t hesitate to call for nerfs if mesmers got something even half as strong on our dodge.

Thank you for proving my point. Warriors used to get punished for using adrenaline. Used to. Then Anet acknowledged that is a kittenty way to have a mechanic designed and fixed it.

Guardians are not punished for using their virtues. Whether the passives are better than using the active effects is an issue, but guards are not punished for using virtues. They aren’t losing 40%+ for a prolonged period of time of their DPS by using them.

Rangers are in no way punished by using their pet. I mean you even argue that yourself when you point out how much of their damage comes from teh pet instead of the ranger…. Not sure what else you’re trying to accomplish with the rest of that paragraph. Part of being a ranger is managing your pet so they don’t die, but you are in no way punished by using pets. You are punished by not using them though.

Necros are not punished by entering shroud. Like you said, the enter shroud, use their 1 or 2 skills, and leave it again. They don’t lose their minions if running a minion build. They don’t lose 40%+ of their damage when entering shroud. They certainly don’t rely on 1 weapon skill coming off of CD up to twice in order to get back to full DPS (assuming we don’t run SoE we have to cast a phantasm, wait for weapon skill CD, cast again, wait for CD again, cast it a third time).

The only thing you got right is that most classes have situations where they do and don’t want to use their mechanics. But so far you have yet to refute the fact that mesmer is the only class that is actively punished for using our mechanic. And its no small punishment. Its a huge punishment on our DPS, that lasts a long kittening time. And PF, for as good as it is against large HP single targets, just makes that worse, because it means we are losing an even larger portion of our DPS when we shatter, since our phantasms loose all those stacks.

Why do you continue to insist that other classes are hampered to anywhere near the level mesmer is by their class mechanics? They aren’t. Plain and simple.

Esplen.3940:

Uhhhh… what is going on here. If you’re running a Phantasm build, you shouldn’t be using Shatters. Ever. If you do, for whatever reason, use a Shatter, you know the cost of it and do so willingly. So I don’t see what you’re aiming at.

This is the kittening problem! why do you refuse to acknowledge that? We are the only class that is actively punished by using our own mechanic. Warriors aren’t punished for using adrenaline. Revs’ aren’t punished for switching legends. Guards aren’t punished for using their virtues. Thieves aren’t punished for using steal. Engis aren’t punished for using toolbelt skills. Rangers aren’t punished for using their pet. Eles aren’t punished for swapping attunements. Necros aren’t punished for using shroud. Yet mesmer IS punished for using our shatters.

Literally all I’m proposing is to try to lessen that punishment for builds running PF. And you are being an ass because you refuse to acknowledge the problem that mesmer is the only class, literally the only class, that is actively PUNISHED for using its class mechanic. Stop trolling this thread.

I think that you misunderstand what I’m proposing more so than anything else. First, I have to say that I want shatters and the illusion mechanic fundamentally changed. Yet I am also realistic about what we have a chance at getting. Changing the class mechanics at a core level would basically mean redoing the entire class from the ground up. Almost all of our skills and traits would have to be redone, and this only gets more and more complicated and time consuming the more elite specs we get (more skills and more traitlines, on top of new mechanics). At this point I doubt we will ever get the fundamental change that our mechanic needs.

This proposal came about as a way to just lessen the downsides to using a shatter in a phantasm build. Its not supposed to increase our DPS. Its not supposed to make shatters good. Its not adding more mechanics, just changing how the current mechanics of the trait work. Its definitely not changing the fact that shatters are counterproductive.

The only point of this suggestion is to lessen the harm that shattering does to mesmers. The benefits of shattering will never replace the DPS/utility/open world PvE aggro tanking that our illusions provide, ever. The least we can get is for shatters to be less harmful to our sustained DPS then.

Plus, think about open world PvE for a second. Having PF be on the mesmer himself allows you to kill a group of mobs, then summon a new phantasm on a new mob that already has the full 25% damage modification from PF. BOOM! It instantly improves our ability to change targets, since we can change targets with full powered phantasms. This suggestion is not meant to do anything except lessen the negative aspects of shattering for mesmers in a variety of situations. It is NOT intended to fix the self defeating mechanic that we have. And I think that a few people are caught up about that, and aren’t understand what this proposal is for.

Which ones do I dream of having most? Kasmeer’s portal ability honestly, the ability to place the exit portal wherever you kitten well please, without needing to actually be able to walk/jump there first. It woudl trivialize everything though