A message to our esteemed forum moderators
To encourage thoughtful and organized discussion, it is best to leave threads approaching the patch notes from different directions as separate threads. Far from cluttering the forums, this allows for different aspects of the changes to be considered and discussed in an organized manner. If all such threads are merged into one, as has been done so far, it simply creates a disorganized mush of what could be helpful discussion.
That being said, here are my thoughts.
It seems to be that balancing and changes with regards to the mesmer class are being made while completely out of touch with the reality of this game. This patch only exemplifies that more.
Good Changes
- The Phantasmal Berserker was fixed. This is a good change. Unfortunately, it comes 6 months too late to deserve any applause or thanks.
- Bounce logic was fixed. This is a good change. Unfortunately, similar to the phantasmal berserker, this is a bug fix, and deserves only minor applause and thanks.
- Interrupt traits were significantly boosted. Unfortunately, due to the nature of interrupts, most of these traits still aren’t strong enough to base a build around.
- Phantasm hp was significantly increased in PvE and slightly increased in PvP. A good change, but more on this later.
- Signet of illusions was fixed so that it applies immediately. A good change but again, more on this later.
- Shattered conditions is now aoe
That’s about it. Now for the bad changes.
- Blurred frenzy is now an evade. It also has a its base cooldown increased by 20%
- Signet of illusions passive effect reduced to 50% down from 200%
- Vengeful images now only applies retaliation for 5 seconds after the summon of a phantasm
- Illusionist’s celerity moved from 5 point minor to 25 point minor
These are abbreviated versions. There are obviously more changes that I didn’t touch upon, but these are the only changes that (in my opinion) actually make a difference.
Here is the main issue. The positive changes to our traits and skills are relatively minor or are complete bug fixes. On the other hand, the nerfs are massive. Anet is obviously spending developer and programmer time figuring out effective ways to nerf mesmers, while completely ignoring the parts of our class that are still completely broken. I will now list the largest offenders.
- The iMage could be replaced with a placeholder saying “This skill does nothing” and nobody would care
- The scepter (even after this addition of torment) is completely useless. There are 0 situations outside of a glamour build in wvw that the scepter is better than the sword, greatsword, or staff unless one ignores all functions of the scepter other than the block itself.
- Phantasmal haste still does not apply to 2 of our phantasms: Swordsman and mariner
- Illusionary elasticity still does not apply to staff clones
- Wastrel’s punishment is still useless
- Mantras are still extremely underwhelming with underwhelming and poorly designed traits
- Due to the nature of interrupts, the interrupt traits are still of very limited use
These are a lot of massive problems. However, instead of fixing these problems, Anet decides to hand out significant nerfs. The nerf to signet of illusions, in my opinion, is reasonable, but that’s pretty much it. Blurred frenzy is nerfed twice, once in evade and once in cooldown. Vengeful images is, for all intents and purposes, no longer a trait. Lastly, Illusionist’s Celerity is moved from 5 point minor to 25 point minor, nerfing every single build that is not shatter.
And as if all that weren’t enough, these changes are made in the name of build diversity. Anet is telling us “These changes are actually good for your class. We are doing this to help you.”
Build diversity eh? These changes make a tank build very difficult to play effectively now. They vastly remove potential diversity from both PvE and PvP phantasm builds. They significantly nerf the already very weak condition builds that mesmers have. Across the board, all non-shatter builds that mesmers have are negatively impacted, most in very significant ways.
The small buffs that they gave us are insignificant. Shattered conditions is nice, but with the other changes, it’s now much more difficult to use it effectively. The interrupt traits are nice, but when you couple that with the other changes they just become another shatter variant. Bounce logic was fixed, but builds that rely on that (conditions) are even weaker now.
On top of all this, the phantasm builds that were stupidly overpowered in a 1v1 are still stupidly overpowered in a 1v1. A small cooldown nerf won’t change that. People are still going to get facerolled by any competent phantasm build player and they’ll just cry for more nerfs.
