Guild Wars 2

I would like for such feature but I don’t think it will happen for AI reasons. Though they are becoming a tad more interesting to be truly effective it would require too much work I’m afraid.

Plus it was supposed to be a feature when the game was first announced (well you were supposed to choose between a dual class just like in GW1 or having at all time a mercenary to help you out but only one class to specialize in (just like GW1 mercenaries).

The fact that they cut the idea I think indicate that they won’t go into that. Buuuuut, I think in a distant future it could be a thing and I would definetly love it, though if they don’t add dungeons with the next expansion but only continue fractals you can be sure it won’t happen. I mean, AI wouldn’t be able to deal with fractals (unless they make some weird adjustments, and still) and who cares about the first dungeons if we start to have all expansions not adding any.

Internet in general can be useful only for the annoying achievements such as collect X piece of boring paper in an area. For everything else, the core game you should NEVER need youtube or anything. The game is doing a great job at telling you what to do (even probably telling you way too much what to do).

There is no need to have this new option. 99% of players want to salvage rares and exotics with very high quality salage kit (or at least decent for rare) and crap but cheap for everything below.

There is no logical scenario where you want to salvage ALL with the same kit anyway. Unless they introduce a super duper op infinite salvage kit in the gemstore that for some reason has the best salvaging capacities at a low cost (but let’s face it wouldn’t be absurd and won’t happen).

So no, really, there is no need for such feature it would cause more harm from players doing mistakes than being any useful to any player.

New expansion = new pets. I mean why the ranger would get new pets that affect its gameplay while other classes would stay with the same stuff ?
I mean then Engis should have new turrets, mesmer new clones and so on.

I think what the OP problem truly is (and not what transpired into the conversation) is that at the end of the day a lot of recent events is about Taimi being a genius.

My comparison is a bit of a stretch but to me it feels a LOT like a modern “police/detective” series with pseudo high-tech guru stuff behind such as NCIS and others. Taimi is your genius talking through a com and summoning you to the base regularly and send you on missions to do random stuff in each episode.

The real problem is more than the living world is very similar to a tv show in terms of story writing (Kasmeer/Marjory last love troubles is a good example) and less of the story of 5 races surviving in a hard environment (with so many dragons oddly enough liking to sleep).

I also find it refreshing, it is an original way to tackle MMO story-telling to say the least. We could have two type of content, the serie-tv like with living world seasons and the more "planet gw2 real fantasy lore) stories with expansions. I just wished the two matched more together and had a bit more cohesion. Because so far the 5 episodes of this season have been in so many directions, started so many things and truly finished (halfly) only one being the White Mantle and mainly Caudecus threat.

Well GW2 has just the same issue with way less building options. Just look at basically all part of the game. PvE, PvP, raid etc every aspect of the game there is builds much stronger than others and they are spammed over and over. GW1 in the end had 10 classes allowing for all of them to cross in any possible way (even if many combinations were a dead-end, I mean a Warrior was never able to pull of good magic abilities with so terrible energy upkeep).

I don’t see why GW1 “died” because of “OP” build. I think that was the whole charm of GW1, going with whacky ideas to find a solution to every problem. The 55hp was mostly due to one spell in the end, not at all because of dual class (that and the fact that HP and damage weren’t very high in the end).

As for the things I haven’t adressed:

- I insisted in the posts that each primary class stays as it is. Having any secondary class “simply” gives access to one specialization max, weapon spells that can be used (i.e that are of the same weapons as the primary class), utility spells, elite spells.

So if we have an Ele/Engi well you don’t have a lot of interactions possible at first glance. You can use all Engi utility if you think they are worth, some traits could help for some builds. Just like you never had a total synergy of both classes in GW1 you don’t need here to have a perfect symbiosis of the two classes in GW2. There is plenty of example from GW1 such as Warrior/Assassin shadow step (or Dervish), the Ranger/Warrior hammer using Ranger mechanics with Warrior spells etc.

The idea is to allow for more diversity and more creativity from the players. There is no logical reason for having such a poor amount of customization. I mean even hack and slash have more build options it is a bit ridiculous at this point and nothing seem to point that the second expansion of the game will change anything. At the end of the day we simply “replace” a bundle of spells to choose from (Elite spec X) with a new bundle (Elite spec Y).

And that’s the best way to have a very boring meta being simply about which Spec is the most broken at a given time in a given situation.

I wouldn’t suggest a dual class system if we had any possibility to choose weapon spells from a pool of spells to begin with and not having such absurd choices of “utility”, healing and elite spells. (A huge amount of utility and elite spells are underwhelming. I’d love to see % of use of each utility and elite spells just for fun)

I just don’t get why people are ok with spamming the same 1-2-3-4-5 for years now while there is no logical reason for being so limited in customization. And the balance excuse is really a fake excuse to me. You can say that I’m no developer and everything you want, go ahead. But many games with a lot more customization have a far better balancing than GW2 with an absolutely ridiculous lack of customization has.

In the meantime the game expands on legendary equipment, pretend to break the dps/tank/healer trinity but then introduce it back but only halfway with elite specs and raids and now soon the other core feature that GW franchise always said would never go to will be a thing.

I’d be ok if the game was going in a set direction that makes sense. But to me it is just going into way too much pew pew pew it’s flashy so players will like it. Yeah the gameplay is dynamic and it feels good, that doesn’t mean that the players can’t use their brain and make builds by themselves. It’s not marketed as a hack and slash, and still it is just a multiplayer persisten world hack and slash.

As for the “balance” issue again. I think it is a wrong reason. GW2 is probably if not the MMO with the less customization in terms of character. We have 0 stats repartition, very limited build customization and then only stuff remaining with fix combos and a quite limited pool of combinations. The game is already very poorly balanced and it’s not “because it’s an impossible task”. Let’s face it, it is simply because the devteam never took the time to make the game balanced, ever. It would be more than feasible to introduce secondary classes and still have a game balanced. On top of that there is absolutely no reason to say taht it would make the balancing more difficult. I think it would actually be the best way to identify balancing issues very quickly and adress them (i.e if all classes pick the same secondary class with the same spells/traits).

And lastly the elite specs are not at all the same idea. The elite spec are just ONE among several new specialization. The specialization system doesn’t give access to much more options. Each elite spec give you 5 “utility” a new weapon with its spells and that’s pretty much it (ok sometimes a new mechanic). In the end when you will have 4 elite to choose from you will simply pick the one you prefer. And everybody picking the same as you will be identical.

It’s a very very very reduced version of asian MMOs offering evolution of classes after X level (example mage becoming archmage or sorcerer etc). Here you just have a very very poor amount of new spells to play with and that’s it.

And seriously I am tired to use the same core weapons spells for 5 years, give me replayability just please.

castlemanic.3198:

The devs opted to move away from the system for a reason and I’m with the devs on this one. Besides, unlike the original GW, each profession now has mechanics and skills that interact with those mechanics that’s basically impossible to solve for some combinations.

For some examples:

How would you resolve the issue of having a primary elementalist/engineer when every other class can weapon swap

If two professions share weapons, how do you pick which profession’s skills you get to use?

How would you resolve the issue of mesmer illusions and shatters if they’re a secondary profession

Would the devs need to create f1-f5 skills for every secondary profession utility skill that exists?

How would secondary elementalist weapon/glyph skills work when they depend on the elementalists attunement?

Ranger pets?

Basically everything revenant?

What about traitlines? how would you resolve traitline synergy/balance? How would you balance skills if you otherwise removed traitlines?

What about elite specs?

There’s a LOT going on and the rebalancing of a system built from the ground up to not have dual classes may as well be for an entirely new game for all the efforts it would take to scrap the current system and implement the new one (both programming/design wise and implementation wise). And remember, people are now playing with elite specs, so they can’t be removed without severe backlash and harm to their income, so you have to work with/around that instead of tossing it away or ignoring it.

Simply put, there’s too many problems that you would have to resolve to currently place secondary professions within the game. The only possible solution would be using the elite specialisation slot, giving a single traitline (so not every traitline), a single set of utility skills (which limits what utility sets can be given on a profession by profession basis) and a single weapon (which STILL leaves unresolved issues like elementalist/mesmer weapons that were designed with specific mechanics in mind). Considering all that, the revenant was designed in such a way that it makes a secondary profession elite spec impossible for them and revenants are already upset about the lack of customisation compared to other classes, adding more fuel to the fire won’t help. So I don’t see a single possible method of implementation of a dual profession system that would work.

I’m sorry but you clearly didn’t read much of my “idea”. I adressed 99% of what you say is a problem. The only one I did not was the Elem/Engineer weapon swap and the Ranger pet. For the weapon swap it wouldn’t be a problem at all, Engineer can still get weapon skills from other classes, and get utilities etc. That would open Thief pistols spells, warrior rifles, many shield spells etc. As for elem they already have a huge amount of spells and share a lot of weapons with a lot of very diversed builds (I mean an Elem could end up using thief dagger 2 for example if wanted).

The ranger pet would be the only “problem” and I suggest it is the only core mechanic kept “almost as is”. The pet would automatically be available whenever ranger is picked as secondary class, but no pet swap allowed (so only one instead of two), no particular command either and reduced stats.

As for the others, well you can create mesmer clones as a warrior but can’t shatter them (they still automatically disappear anyway at the end of the fight/when they die). The idea isn’t to have all classes doing everything but rather opening new windows on build possibilities. A thief having access to clones could be an amazing idea for examples even if he can’t shatter them.

Well the fact is that GW1 was a lot more enjoyable in terms of balancing and it has a LOT more skills and possibilities. So the whole balancing difficulties in GW2 are just a big joke to me. We have very very very very possible combinations and most of the time it’s just about traits options. I don’t think it is about difficulty but rather about motivation to do it.

And yes reinstating would be best, sorry for the french word :p

How to take care of class core mechanics and what about the oddities of some class spells ?
First of all, all core mechanics of each class is bound to the primary class. That means that only the Necromancer can use life force, only the Mesmer can shatter clones, only the Warrior can use rage etc.

The Elementalist having access to 4 sets of weapon spells (and variations of most of his utility spells) creates one of several exceptions. I suggest that this exception is treated rather simply. The player can only choose one attunment that becomes a passive only (so keeps the passive effect of the said attunment) blocking all the elementalist secondary spells to that attunment.
The Revenant utility spells would work the same way and only one aspect utilies could be used by a secondary classed Revenant player.

The Thief and the Revenant both cause a big problem when it comes to their respective ressources. The Thief using initiative instead of cooldown would make the use of thief weapon skills impossible. A solution would be to transform all thief weapon skills when used as secondary class based on a cooldown instead of initiative. It would requires a bit of work but would be very feasible and avoid overpowered burst combos possible.
As for the Revenant, a similar solution could be suggested. All Revenant secondary classed characters would have their Revenant utility spells being cooldown based and never have upkeep associated to it.
Both of these solutions should also guarantee that a “main” Thief or Revenant stay better at doing their respective job than another class using their skills as secondary class.

I link below an image of an excel file I made as example of a Mesmer/Necromancer using this concept. The idea behind the build is to tap into some Necromancer conditions to help the Condi Mesmer to have some variety to it. It is not meant to be the build of the century but simply a way to one illustrate the idea with a concrete example and two shows what kind of build opportunity it could open.

Thank you all for reading my almost a book suggestion, I hope it will stimulate the community a lot and create a lot more interesting ideas and hopefully/maybe give inspirations to the devs. I really think this concept alone could make the game infinitely more exciting and give a huge refreshment without even adding content, just by allowing more content-crossing. On top of that this feature would match extremly well with elite specializations and give them even more uniqueness as only the primary class would be able to express them.

So how would it work ?
First, this feature could be unlocked or halfway through the experience process (lvl 40 for example) or at lvl max similarly to how elite specializations work. Considering it adds a decent layer of complexity to the build creation I think that the lvl max option is the best. On top of that, a short quest-chain would introduce the player to the secondary class he is going for, just like Guild Wars 1 was doing. The idea is that the chain features 5 short quests with each quest focusing on one part of the class only. For example the first quest to become a Mesmer as secondary class could be focused around Chaos and forces you to use Staves only and a set of heal/utilites/elite fixed, to teach you how to use them properly. The chain of quest would end on a small boss fight against your master (Master Mesmer in this case) and would allow you to create your build the way you want it. (The chain-quest can be skipped entirely when it starts, basically the game ask you if you want to do it or if you consider already being comfortable with the class, to avoid obvious boring repetitions for each alt etc.)

Only one secondary class can be active at any given time. The player can switch between all his unlocked secondary classes at any time outside of battle (a saved build system would be appreciated, thanks!).

When it comes to specializations the player can (is not forced to!) use any of the 5 base specialization of his secondary class (so not any of the elite specialization, let’s be realistic guys). The player can choose to stay with his main specializations if he wants to, he still has access to the other “perks” of his secondary classes (see below).

The player can use all weapon abilities of the secondary class of all weapons that his two classes have in common. For example: a Mesmer/Necromancer can use all the Necromancer’s Scepter, Focus, Staff, Lance and Trident skills. Similarly, the same Mesmer can’t use the Necromancer Dagger, Axe and Warhorn skills as a Mesmer doesn’t normally has access to these. In the case of the Primary class gives access to a new weapon thanks to a specialization, the secondary class skills of that new weapon can be used. For example a Mesmer/Guardian being a Chronomancer can use Guardian shield skills.
All skills can be combined in any way, you can mix Mesmer and Necromancer staves spells on the same bar for example if you want.
tldr: If your class normally can use a weapon, it can use all the skills associated to that weapon of your secondary class.

All base (non elite specialization) healing, utility and elite spells from the secondary class are also available (elite could be subject to debate, as it may lead to many builds going pure something and having only a secondary class for a good elite such as time warp for example, but not so sure about that to be honest kitten many combinations can be so cool when you think of it).
As before, all spells from the two classes can be mixed and matched.

Why re-instauring the Dual-Class system would be beneficial for the game and how it could be done ?

This topic will focus on this concept that is the dual-class. The dual-class system was at the core of Guild Wars 1 experience and allowed any class to have any of the other class as secondary class. This gave access to all of its skills giving huge possibilites for builds (for example a Mesmer casting fireballs, a Monk (healer basically) draining health from enemies with Necromancer spells etc etc). It may sound silly and the best way to have a game ridiculous in terms of balancing but I consider (and I don’t think I’m the only one) that Guild Wars 1 was actually very balanced and even if we had Metas (both in PvE and PvP) shifting regularly it never felt like one build in particular was crushing everything else. There was obvious strong ones, obvious most obscure ones but a huge variety of very solid builds was possible.

Back to Guild Wars 2! You may start already with your “This is not Guild Wars 1” spam, I heard it many times. First of all the dual-class system was supposed to be a feature of Guild Wars 2 when it was first developed. (To make it short the game was giving the option to every player to choose between a secondary class or a permanent NPC following you around to help you; the idea was to allow you to tackle any type of content without being stuck because you can only heal, only deal damage etc). In a nutshell it was the “old” version of “how to break the convetions of DPS/Heal/Tank”. In my opinion it was a MUCH better idea than “Let’s have the funkiest system possible by having all classes healing, reviving each other and running all around in the biggest chaos possible!”.

Back to topic!

Why suggesting such a feature only now, isn’t it too late for such a massive core feature of a game ?
Well I don’t think so. I think this feature could be very similar to how elite specialization was introduced. The only difference is that this feature should be introduced at the core of the game, not attached to any expansion. It would be unthinkable to allow a world where some players have access to dual class while some others because they don’t have expansion number X. Just like the specializations have been reworked a while ago this could be done the same way and affect the entirety of the game “for free”.

I hope they learned the lesson and won’t go too strong on the power creep side of things. The MASSIVE difference this time is that we will have 2 elite specs fighting for the same spot where previously you had the choice only to have a spec or not (and honestly not to have it was in 90% of the case worse).

The system is absolutely brilliant but require a lot of content in game to be cool, so far we don’t have that lot of content we only have the canvas for the content. We will finally have choice, at last, so it should be a loooot more interesting in terms of strategy. And each class will have very different possibilities in terms of strategy. but as always we’ll have to wait and see

They should simply be possible to demultiply just like achievements points rewards work (Zenith skins etc). I mean you already pay a crapton of gem for the item. It’s really silly that you can’t even use that item with all your character when the game is soooo heavily pushing you to play an account and not only one character (at this point pretty much everything is account bound almost).

I mean yeah they want money but seriously, you don’t need to be that greedy. You can make poney flashy wings everybody will buy them you don’t need to ruin the comfort of play.

The game is extremly far from being technologic aside from the Asuran (and still it’s a lot of magic involved). On top of that Asuran technology was already a thing in Eye of the North for example. The game happens much after the first GW so it makes sense that some technologic evolution happened. It’s far from being sci-fi, there’s a tiny bit of steam-punk but that’s it seriously. I mean the most advanced weaponry we have is a flamethrower basically, we are far away from spaceships and all man.

I think that focusing too much on the expansion solely isn’t the good way to see things. As a matter of fact the current season of living world (season 3) is of very good quality. We already got 5 new very interesting maps, new content and all this just before the release of a new major expansion. I think GW2 has its future brighter than ever and I say this as a very big fan of the franchise who was extremly bitter when I realized how the “build” system turned out to be what it is when the game released and the pretty obvious lack of content HoT offered (in particular in terms of gameplay and even objectives).

They clearly took a big turn in their direction now and I think the “new team” is doing a far better job at doing something great with this game. If we truly have an episode every 3 months and an expansion after every season it will be just freaking awesome. Now there is a few potential issues with the balancing of elite specs and the mastery system which already became extremly odd even before the new expansion. But that can be fixed, tweaked and arranged so I’m not too worried. (plus the leaks are soooo exciting in terms of what will arrive)

GW1 (and many other games) can be very heavy on skill requirement and still allow for great build customization. You can play extremly well in GW2 but if you don’t have a meta build or at least near meta you will end up being drastically worth than a very very very bad player with the perfect meta build. And it’s sad, very sad.

In PvE dodge is a great mechanic, in PvP dodge and block can create so dumb scenarios. Some elite spells are barely usable because of that.

Though I agree with the whole “Mesmer is to set on one thing” part (specially tired to consider the mesmer as a human-teleporter; funnily enough season 3 of living world is treating mesmers solely as human-teleporter it made me laugh so hard).
I don’t think that weapons spells on Mesmer are bad anymore, I really love to use my Scepter, the changes (a while ago) on the last hit of the auto-hit Scepter combo is so welcome and so are the additions to a few spells (such as the 2 and 3 staff spells being tweaked, the pistol phantasm).

My problem is really that there is no real customization, if you want to be original you are very quickly sub-optimal and feel really under-powered.

I wanted to reply SlippyCheeze.5483 and kamedin.4698 in particular :

- The game does play a lot more like an action game. I think it is very refreshing and done very well. Though now it’s far from being the only MMO with that gameplay (basically every new MMO is doing that now) and most still offer some sort of customization (even if I’m very often disappointed in those other titles). Using the whole “it’s action focused” excuse is being lazy I think. Proof is all 9 classes share the same pool of weapons and a Mesmer and a Guardian will use their greatsword in very different ways. So I don’t see why it would be a problem that suddenly the same Mesmer can have a close-range auto-hit doing a big arc (similar to the sword combo but with bigger range).

- The whole balance thing is really not relevant either. I find GW2 by very far much worse in terms of balancing compared to GW1 where balance update were so regular and very well done. I never felt in GW1 that any of the class was overpowered overall (maybe Ritualist and Paragon a bit too niche most of the time though). Fact is GW2 has a very small amount of skills, and even less to choose from within each class and there has always been huge balance issues that are still noticeable. I mean the Engineer is very commonly pointed at as the underwhelming class while the Guardian and the Elementalist have always been at the top in all part of the games.

When you compare the huge amount of new spells each expansion GW1 brought and the ridiculous +7 to +10 spells (ok I don’t count shatter and such) per class added. The number would be ok all the spells were free to use anywhere on the build from 1 to 8 but no. If you want to use shield spells on mesmer you first have to keep chronomancer specialization at all times and to use the shield even though you may find no use in one of the two spells, on top of that you lose access to all other 4 and 5 slots.

I really have the feeling that developers never really considered that maybe people were finding the game repetitive and lacking in content because the core gameplay is crazy repetitive because of spamming the same spells over and over.

On top of that if we do get that awaited new expansion likely bringing one new specialization to all class the problem will still be there (and I think even worse). You will then have to choose one specialization over the other so losing access to your 7-10 spells over the other pack of spells. We already lost the double profession system so amazing from GW1 (which was supposed to be kept but removed during development, very bad idea in my opinion), it would be good if we could gain back some decent customization in the builds and not ending having all the same build.

(And just for info I’m playing confusion-based Mesmer Scepter/Shield + Staff with lot of interrupt spell, so really not the typical greatsword zerk)

The title may sound cheeky but …

I have been on GW2 since closed beta and was following the game closely before that. I know it will never be “like good old Guild wars 1” but are we really doomed forever to get stuck with that very boring weapon system that breaks entirely the one fun thing that guild wars 1 offered being builds. I am tired to use the very same skills over and over and over and over for years now and have to stick with them. The specialization doesn’t change much things as they add only one new weapon and for most classes that means that they will still have “old” weapons as swap anyway.

Could we have over time added weapon spells and have for example a set of two or even three spells per slot to choose from (not necessarily all of them but at least have some more freedom). We could have one alternate for the 5th skill for each weapon, later one for the 4th and so on.

My biggest problem with GW2 by very very far is the huge lack of build customization. It got slightly better with the rework on specialization past years but it still is extremly poor and straightforward and most of the time it is solely about pure damage vs condition and balance/defense balancing. I’d like to feel I am actually playing a RPG and not a multiplayer hack and slash.

And a huge part of utility skills as they are called (and even elite) feel so underwhelming. I play almost only mesmer and most spells feel just meh. (the super clunky mantra and illusion of life being the most obvious examples to me).

Thanks for the answer.
So in a nutshell it does work on NPCs but the defiance system sucks so hard that mesmer suffer greatly from it and devs don’t care (since it’s not the only trait hardly affected by it).
Ok … awesome … an other reason pushing me to reroll …

Is Power Block (Grandmaster Domination trait) effective in PvE against NPC and particularly against bosses ?

I have tried a few times but my strategy to try out was just … ridiculously stupid. So I ask if anyone cleverly tested it out. Because adding a 15 sec time on the cooldown of bosses spells could be very interesting. But my guts are telling me that this is a many things about mesmer completely bugged or not usable at all.

I really miss GW1 mesmer possibilites regarding to interrupting monsters and shutting them down entirely and this trait kinda give this in a very shy way I would say.

Anyone knows ?

Despite the respect for the time you put into it I do’nt think you are offering any “build” as such. I mean you recommend more than half of the spells of the game, almost every weapon possible and every trait. So … is that just your way of seeing every mesmer related stuff or a real build at last ?
Plus I don’t really like the lack of uniqueness of the build. It’s very simple, it’s a spam your shatters build without any addition to it.

As for the shield it blocks damage but not conditions in a lot of scenarios and it is not as potent as it seems in many situations. Plus it’s so obvious and people are already used to it. It’s almost a breathing space for any opponent when a chrono uses his 4’s shield spell.
I start to think that the Chrono is in a crap spot in PvP at least. It’s a veeeery obvious specialization with a lot of massive flashy effects and obvious aoe which are for most (except gravity well) super easy to dodge in a second. Compared to the lovely op Dragon Hunter who can stun locks the whole planet in a matter of seconds the Chrono wells and shield are quite … sad.
But it’s just my bitter opinion on the matter.

I don’t think the “vintage” mesmer is dead. Overall Chronomancer doesn’t add a lot to the old zerk mesmer (which I never played because I find it too braindead to be played). For the condi it can give a few interesting combo between the shield massive interrupt and the F5 shatter spam combos.
As support it gives a few new options which I don’t find extremly useful to be honest despite the fact that everyone is so thrilled about the wells and alacrity. I think wells are very poorly thought out, most are very useless, none of them give any condition damage, and being both offensive and defensive make most crap at both. Only precognition, the healing one and the ultimate one are truly standing out in my opinion because of their “uniqueness”, others are often having no impact at all and are better replaced with other spells in my opinion.

Overall the mesmer had a HUGE help with the buff to the clones taking only 10% of damage from aoe. So even vintage mesmer can do a lot more cool stuff now.

Don’t you dare the mesmer can’t strongly heal and share boons.
Signet of inspiration on its own is the most op boon sharing thing ever. The whole staff is filled with boons. Phantasms can proc infinite regeneration on the whole team while Phantasmagorical defender shield the team.

Minstrel stats are super duber op on a healing mesmer (and yes a healing mesmer is more than viable I’ve been playing it for over a week and I’m having a blast in decently high level fractals).

Just stop seeing the Mesmer as a glass cannon damage dealer and start considering his HUGE supprortive possibilites for once. The mesmer has a lot of way to interrupt, cc, debuff, buff, move people and things around. If you want a glass cannon go for a Thief. I don’t see why this trait is an issue I run for a mixxed rabid stuff and I’m fine with it.

My biggest problem is more about having ONE stat for conditions while THREE for raw damage. If only the condi duration was implemented properly to HOT and not very weirld on some stuf with super odd stats combinations and awful materials list to craft it.

I think the way it currently works is intended and I’m fine with it.
I mean the spell gives a speed bonus, a speed debuff on opponents and you can pull ennmies in a straight line. That’s a LOT of effects for a offhand spell with fairly low cd. And a straight line of monsters is not that terrible really, specially when you consider the gravity well in addition to it.
Plus curtain call is a massive aoe interrupt spell, yes it can pack ennemies but it’s also a great way to interrupt a lot of monsters at once and that people underestimate it !

It all depends whether you want to go for raw damage or condi damage.
You could even play support though it’s even trickier and with the current state of healing power not rewarding enough (even though it does heal a pretty decent amount still!).

Mesmer has a few specialties. I won’t go into what all other classes can do (such as doing raw damage and spamming autohits).

First mesmer has a lot of synergy with interrupting your foe. Any spell that knock down, daze or stun ennemy works. If you look carefuly you’ll realize that the mesmer can effectively interrupt a LOT his opponent if you time well your interruptions. If you go for raw damage you can get a trait doing damage for each interruption + weakness, if you go for condi you can add aoe confusion on it among other things.

Then you have your clones, it’s all about whether keeping them or not and when shattering them. Overall raw power build tend to shatter clones occasionally (basically when F1 cd is ready and 2-3 clones are up and/or to use specific situation, such as using F3 to interrupt a special attack, or F4 for last minute survivability). Condi build tends to spam more the F1-4 since it can in total applies 2 stacks of confusion, one stack of torment and one stack of blindness for each explosion + the confusion and torment from clones aswell (one stack each). Just be careful not to shatter phantasms too quickly otherwise you’ll waste some potential, on condi build I tend to shatter them right after their first attack, sometimes later but they don’t do enough damage to waste time and not shater them quickly.

As for utilities there is some very odd one (such as the VERY risky revive spell) but a lot can be very useful depending on the situation. The aoe to remove condi and boons is extremly useful in any gamemode, the phantasm doing the same thing bouncing is very useful aswell, the defensive phantasm can be extremly useful in team. I do think that the two utilities you talked about are the less useful because they are extremly selfish and are used solely to cover a mistake you made while the others have some effectiveness you bring on the table. Blinking is really useful only for running scenarios and to save you from a tight spot, which shouldn’t happen if you are careful (in PvP it’s different I agree, but I still think Blink shouldn’t be used that much on most builds).

I can’t give much more informations since you haven’t told us what kind of build you want to go to. My biggest advice is to find one concept you want to do, dealing damage, applying condis, supporting etc. Then you look for the best weapons to suit that playstyle, then you look at the specialisations helping you the most for that purpose etc. Doing everything one by one will make you realize there is a lot of hidden synergies very interesting.

Mantra mesmer ? That’s not a real option, that cleanse only one condi you can cleanse maximum 3 condis that way. Mesmer has MUCH better options to cleanse or even send back conditions, and using blindness-shatter trait is a good way to prevent condi spam to. Better avoiding to get condi than looking for a way to cure it in my opinion.

The biggest issue in my opinion is the combination of stealth and the terrible targeting system. When you try to burst down let’s say a Thief in fight and he goes invisible and you have just one guy around, let’s say a mesmer with 3 clones. To get back your target on the Thief as he attacks it’s just SOOOOOO tedious for no reason. Being invisible is already strong enough as it is, getting back to your target as he is not invisible anymore would be good, or at least brining a lot more options to the table to counter stealth. Because if I’m correct with HoT we will have only a second way to break stealth … Woohoo so much possibilities …

And in my opinion way too many classes can stealth, the ranger for instance his stealth is so trollish, you always end up targeting his stupid bird and spend 4 hours targeting again the ranger because that kitten bird flies all over the place and his “hitbox” is ridiculous too big.

The real problem comes from how the game has been made only around condis and not condis and debuff just like GW1 used to.
That good old system allowed for diverisity and was balancing the meta quite a bit.
Here it’s all about boons and conditions and not so many classes can cleanse a lot of condi in one go. By the way this meta gives a nice advantage to necro condi (or good guardians aswell) BUT I don’t think it’s so much of a problem. I built my all strategy around it and now I win almsot every fight I am into, I still can’t wait for HoT to change my boring as hell ultimate spell but overall I’m pretty happy (playing as a mesmer). Condis can be avoided too if you cc or blind your ennemy, people tend to forget that detail. So I constantly blind my opponent, blast him with confusion and torment and block, dodge and dodge again most attacks as my ennemy dies by himself.

I find this meta much healthier than what it used to be honestly. I still think burning damage is wayyyyyy too overpowered. 9/10 scenarios I die from burning, guardian specially can apply burning way too often and the burst of damage is just trollish as hell. You can die in 3 seconds if you don’t remove the condition instantly and when you have any other condi opponent targeting you well you just die (or not) quite randomly depending solely on if the conditions you cleanse was burning or not. I would LOVE to see some sort of system that makes cleansing prioritizing the bigges stack or duration condis first. Because when you cleanse a 1 sec left 1 stack bleeding when you have like 7 stack of burning killing you like crazy you just feel sooooooo frustrated and it just doesn’t feel right, at this pace it’s not about skill but just about lucky timing.

I think condi mesmer is very balanced actually, it just requires a lot more thinking to build a working build than other build/class Ive tried so far.

Mistrust as it is is not very powerful but combined with the ridiculously op 5th skil of the chronomancer mistrust gets terribly op. If you have just three ennemies packed you use 5 interrupt them twice which lead them to have all 8 stack of confusion for free. When there is 5 ennemies it’s 16 stack with one spell, it’s just ridiculously op in PvE, pretty useful in PvP and probably op aswell in wvw for same reason as pve format.

My ONLY issue with condi mesmer is the fact that perplexity runes are not available in PvP and is THE rune for a good condi mesmer (all the other classes have op choices for runes but not condi mesmer ? really ? unfair !)

For those sceptical feel free to ask me in private my build and try it out.

I don’t think this trait is any op. If you go for domination you have a lot of traits going for “raw damage” and not condi. In addition most classes have a lot of way to counter that, if you are blinded it fails, if they have stability it fails etc etc.
I have tried it in pvp and I found much better to go for than this trait (specialisation too anyway).

The only REQUIRED nerf is burn damage for pvp balance sake I think.

Condi mesmer with a scepter can be VERY powerful. You can very often apply 20-25 stack of confusion instantly and the chronomancer will make that way more broken.
Question is how ?
Well the answer is easy. It’s all about combinations. There is tons of traits allowing to apply a ridiculous amount of conditions, the “Duel” grandmaster trait applying confusion in aoe when you interrupt a foe is by far the best for the chronomancer wave (and still very potent without it). Going runes of perplexity is a MASSIVE help (though it’s not really cheap).

I won’t spend too much time demonstrating how powerful it is, but it really is extremly powerful. It’s not because people prefer zerk greatsword because it’s braindead to play that condi mesmer is useless. Condi mesmer can be very powerful and at the same time help the team a lot (mostly by blinding ennemies every 2 seconds and interrupting them in addition).

I LOVE chronomancers really but my only real problem is that I play a condi mesmer and none of the new skills apply condition damages whatsoever. So indirectly the condi mesmer benefits from the chronomancer but sadly it benefits way less than a zerk does.
Why none of the wells apply a condition ? Torment and/or confusion on at least one well would be very interesting, or something more original for a mesmer such as poison or bleeding.

I really like the chrono but it hurts me playing a few wells that serves only for the boost and not the damage since I have a power level extremly low (going with armor, condi and crit chance build).

Sorry if it had been suggested hundreds times, it probably had but couldn’t find it. Still here I am.

I have some issues with the current PvP mode and I will try to explain why.
The current setting is about capturing 3 points on the map and try to hold it to gain points, each map having different tweaks to make them “unique”.

First, the cap system is … creating a strange meta. Why strange ? Well because it gives a strong benefit from being a bunker and/or being extremly fast to go capture points. I don’t see how it is supposed to be fun, I can understand it’s enjoyable at very high level in tournament, maybe why not. But it’s extremly unpleasant to play with a “random” pickup team because it’s nearly impossible to have any form of synergy during the game whether it’s because of the builds, the classes or just the way each move and which point they want to cap.
In addition it creates some weird hide and seek situations where you start a 1vs1 fight, and as soon as one on any team arrives the guy facing the two others or suicide (or try to make it last as long as possible) or logically runs away making a chasing boring situation which leads in a non-fighting situation again.

Why the very simple but so effective arena system of GW1 hasn’t been kept or at least made possible in a different game mode ? Isn’t it possible to just add it as a test, a very simple 5vs5 fight with no timer or death count, just the last team to stand wins and that’s it. You could keep the current conquest (and bastion) game modes and add this as a side mode and see if it’s popular or not, the conquest map could very much work with that kind of rule, tweaking slightly the specialties of each map, keeping maybe Svanir and the chief, or putting just one of the two in the fort place to have fighting situations, putting a few bonus (damage, armor etc) orbs in the temple map, why not letting the trebuchet in Khylo etc.

I spent so many hours in GW1 arena just having fights over and over without ever getting bored from it and here I’m just so hugely frustrated from that capture the area system which focuses so heavily on moving around more than fighting for real. That kind of rules should only apply to WvW at a larger scale (capturing a keep etc), but not on such a small scale. Or at least just in one map I don’t know. I want to have real 5vs5 fights with nice teamplay and nice actions rather than having XvsX fights depending solely on who knows when and how to move around the map.

Any thoughts on that ?

I am more than right with you dude.
The real problem is that all stats linked to raw damage are powerful while all others are fairly weak (maybe except vitality).
Conditions and healing specially scale extremly badly (healing being the worst). I am happy with my damage as it is as a full condi mesmer but I know I’m doing significantly less damage than a zerk …
The other big problem in my opinion is that there is 3 different stats linked to raw damage vs one to conditions. So the crit chance can lead to apply more conditions using weapons bonus (such as 60% of bleeding while crit). But still, improving condition duration for example as stats would be cool, and that’s one simple idea.

And why the perplexity runes are not available in PvP (among others) ? That very strongly affect mesmer badly I think because they are the ones benefacting the most from it.