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In the interest of giving good feedback, and pointing out some problem-areas for the Devs, I am curious in everyone’s 5 least favorite major traits and 2 least favorite minor traits. I’ll kick us off.
Major:
- Rending Shatter(Domination IV) – Shatters causing vulnerability isn’t all that compelling.
- Retaliatory Shield(Dueling III) – We don’t have very high access to block, and Mesmers don’t do well taking damage to trigger the effect.
- Furious Interruption(Dueling XII) – Short duration quickness, long cooldown, and difficult activation condition.
- Dazzling Glamours (Illusions VIII) – Nerfed to uselessness, was only ever good as an abusive means to cause confusion.
- Phantasmal Haste (Illusions X) – In a bad location for splashing and barely works regardless.
Minor:
- Dazzling (Domination Master) – Boring and essentially a part 2 to the previous minor trait.
- Vengeful Images (Inspiration Adept) – Not a very good deterrent to killing phantasms, can potentially proc only once per death, and has a short duration.
This trait was wildly overpowered. I there was a 15 point minor for any other profession that basically read: "Reduce cooldown of all weapon skills by 33%, it would basically be impossible to run that profession without putting 15 points into that line.
Illusionist’s Celerity reduces the cooldown of illusion-summoning skills by 20%. By default, all weapon sets have 2 abilities which are affected by this trait, and additionally it also reduces the cooldown of 4 different utilities. There is no doubt that Opportunist is the “stronger” ability, but with such a sweeping statement about trait balance I don’t consider Illusionist Celerity to be something that can be ignored.
This and Duelist’s Deception have continued to be traits that far-too-dramatically influence major Mesmer mechanics.
(edited by ViRiD.2784)
Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.
This might be a pipe dream, but I’d love to see Confusing Images AoE around the target it hits with additional confusion stacks, or it even jump from target to target. If this could be the weapon I’m excited to bring into WvW or when I’m assaulting conquest nodes, I’d be so happy.
The mesmer buff marks the return of 12-second phantasms. Along with Mender’s Purity removing two conditions, are you sure that is wise? It is true that Mesmers do need help in sPvP, but Illusionists Celerity has always felt like a problem-trait, along with Deceptive Evasion.
If I’m understanding your request correctly, Devon, then I think we as a community really need to go back to the basics of how WvW works on a fundamental level if we’re going to actually compensate for population imbalances.
The most obvious solution to me is a timezone-bridging capstone event somewhere on the order occurring every 12 hours that acts as a primary accumulator of points in WvW, and uses the number of controlled nodes as a multiplier for the number of points rewarded such that winning it and denying other servers it is the single most important thing to victory.
As it stands, ticking every 12 minutes for points leaves the mode subject to the most subtle of population fluctuations. Constant 24/7 activity is far too necessary, and the point system would be my first consideration for relieving that.
The ability is pretty good for mesmers, but I don’t know any other class that would give up their heals for this ability. Maybe elementalists or Guardians might it find it slightly useful, but I really don’t see this ability making a very big splash in the game.
For the hammer train meta, commanders might make everyone run it, but I’m not convinced that’s better than the current setup.
WvW population imbalance is really, really weird to me for a couple of reasons as an MMO vet:
1. The game mode is completely incentivized. It’s probably one of the best ways to get EXP and Karma in the game, and provides access to a lot of exotic gearsets through its own currency. Additionally, it drops an abundance of T7 mats and I’ve personally received a couple of Ascended Rings from the rank chests.
2. It doesn’t correlate completely with overall world population. Though the Server list is notoriously nondescriptive of the actual activity of the servers, I have seen T2 servers like FA be a whole descriptor lower than a server like Kaineng.
These lead me to the conclusion that some servers just lack a WvW-focused group, and for whatever reason the majority have no interest in participating in the game mode. Thus, I feel we should avoid making any sort of conclusion like “low wvw pop -> game is dying” because I don’t believe they are linked in any discernible way.
If I had to spitball a direction for how to tackle the imbalance, it can either fall in one of three ways:
1. Force PvE’ers against their will into WvW. Tying it to the living story, or making it better than FGS or CS for farming, will force a number of players into WvW that may not want to be in there. Other MMO’s have done similar things with large quest hubs tied to a pvp zone.
2. Shift the majority of changes to the game mode to accessibility for casual and non-pvp’ers. Listen to their complaints first and foremost, and have them direct the development of the WvW area. This would likely lead to a reduction of the value of the strict “control the most nodes” game we have now, and shift the points to things like pvp dungeons and other semi-competitive pve encounters.
3. Continue on course, addressing the concerns according to the prioritization Anet had already concluded, and hope that a “better” yet same game mode will naturally attract more players as the gameplay becomes increasingly compelling.
I probably missed things, but that’s my conclusions on pop imbalance off the top of my head.
I don’t see how this build is a better hybrid of stealth/condi/phantasm than a 20/20/30 with the clone death traits and the phantasm buff traits. The points in Inspiration seem like a real waste.
Also, the “trick” is to have an everlasting tonic and use the “leave costume” skill that’s bound to the same key as your heal, so that you can proc the swiftness every cooldown.
I think mantras can be a great tool to make Mesmers a real backline threat like in GW1. As it stands, the time investment for the return in-battle is just far too excessive.
Remove the cooldown and charges from mantras. Their effect should occur immediately after the cast time. Maintaining 2-4 mantras in battle already requires almost constant casting, so why not cut out the middle man and allow us to continually cast the same mantra over and over. They should be incredibly powerful, as a 2.75 second cast is incredibly easy to interrupt and robs the mesmer of all ability to do damage unless hybriding with phantasms.
The value is currently no where near equivalent to the time investment, and until then, they will remain a niche and secondary playstyle. I would never take a mesmer into my group for their mantras as it stands, but I would take them in for their reflects, glamours, time warp, and portals. Mantras are INFERIOR to these abilities in every way.
@DavyMcB: You make a ton of hyperbolic statements, create massive assumptions about both my character and the degree of compensation I’m implying, and still refuse to read the entire thread before you reply. You can barely stay on topic in your long ramble. You’re a joke.
Is this a new fancy way of calling nerfs on a class?
I appreciate your opinion, but it’s wrong.
This, though I don’t appreciate your opinion, you’re just wrong.
Anymore requests for blindly unconstructive nerfs, anyone?
Reading is hard, it seems.
…and mesmers are compensated for their loss.
These two abilities far too drastically influence our interaction with our main class mechanic, Illusions. They’re extremely restrictive to build creativity, and immensely overpowered in their effect on our ability to generation illusions.
I do not believe that their existence will ever allow mesmers to truly explore the diversity of their trait lines until they are removed, and mesmers are compensated for their loss.
You don’t know much about mesmers and it shows. Any phantasm build will exclude DE because clones will begin to override when 3 phantasms are up. I especially liked how you said phantasm builds are inferior to shatter builds – that’s such a nonsensical statement. What does “inferior” even mean in this context, because our strongest 1v1 build is a phantasm build.
I’d like to meet the mesmer who spanked you in PvP/WvW and shake his/her hand. I’m guessing you got confused because so many illusions were out. Here’s some advice – party up and call target on the mesmer as soon as you see him, then repeat that every time you get a bearing on him. Illusions are a class mechanic of ours, taking away traits that improve our ability to create them makes absolutely no sense.
Lol.
What kind of high clone generation build doesnt benefit from being in the shatter line? Theres pigeon holing and then just playing to your strength.
As for necessary thats the problem, mesmers have 4 shatters, generating enough clones to use them all effectively requires certain traits. Deceptive Evasion is a resource and so should be in the trait line which requires that resource.
Both osicat’s stealth-heavy condition build that relies on clones for their death effects and stacking bleeds (20/20/30/0/0) , as well as Countless’s clone-on-death/phantasm build (10/25/10/0/25) both rely on Deceptive Evasion without using shatter what-so-ever. Osicat’s build does not even go into Illusions.
Deceptive Evasion is a problem because if you require high clone production, then you need to have this trait. Unfortunately, Scepter is the only other tool at mesmer’s disposal to that can provide that theoretically high clone production, but is too easy to counter, and lacks consistency to a high degree (speaking only in PvP/WvW).
It, in my opinion, needs to be removed, and mesmers should be compensated slightly for its removal, the same with Illusionist’s Celerity. Illusion production is far too binary with these traits’ existence.
(edited by ViRiD.2784)
Just because you can make builds that don’t have them, doesn’t make those builds good or viable.
iCelerity already ‘went’, and deceptive evasion is going nowhere.
I appreciate your opinion, but it’s wrong.
I think your opinion is wrong. You may be able to get away without having them in PvE, or WvW zergs, but I don’t think it’s possible otherwise. Consider mesmer damage methods: shatter, phantasm, “clone death”, and mantra. Half of them require faster illusions, phantasms desperately misses IC (and is mostly inferior to shatter anyway, and completely nonviable in s/tpvp), and mantra is not viable.
So yeah, your opinion is wrong.
These two abilities far too drastically influence our interaction with our main class mechanic, Illusions. They’re extremely restrictive to build creativity, and immensely overpowered in their effect on our ability to generation illusions.
I do not believe that their existence will ever allow mesmers to truly explore the diversity of their trait lines until they are removed, and mesmers are compensated for their loss.
This will only be interesting if the discussions are few, but broad, and reach consensus. If that doesn’t occur, then this will just be another meaningless talk show.
It needs to have a monitor willing to keep the players on point, and the discussions focused. Ideally, if say “rangers are OP” came up as a topic for discussion under balance, that the players reach a conclusion on what is needed to make rangers VIABLE but not OP. If it’s just 10 players sitting in a room arguing back-and-forth, and then eventually moving on, it’ll be no different than the regular commentary we get from each individual streamer during regular streaming hours.
The benefits to this philosophy is that with everyone on the same page as to what is precisely requested from the highest level pvp community requires (it varies quite a bit at this point), Anet will have very actionable feedback to work with, and I think that is the ultimate ideal for this kind of format.
EDIT: Thanks for everything you guys have been doing for GW2 pvp so far. I personally really appreciate, and I do not think I’m alone in that.
Wouldn’t a shatter build be better since you can use two AOE phantasms, mirror images, deceptive evasion and strong shaters to tag mobs?
Tagging mobs is not difficult in PvE. Phantasms are better damage, and nothing is stopping you from shattering phantasms when a creature is close to death, anyway.
We already have Staff, Scepter, and Greatsword for ranged. A MH pistol is a bad idea for this reason alone.
Axe or Mace are the least-usable MH weapons in the game, so probably one of those two.
The advice in this thread is so bad it’s almost malicious.
10/30/0/30/0 is the default, and most superior PvE build for all intents and purposes. Champion farming requires context to understand what you want, but Pavilion and Frostgorge champion farming are incredibly do-able as a Mesmer.
Use Sword/Focus and Sword/Pistol. Your auto-attacks will strike 3 creatures at a time, Blurred Frenzy accomplishes the same goals, and a well-placed Phantasmal Warden can tag many, many creatures at once.
To keep pace with the zergs, use Focus-4, Temporal Curtain, to maintain swiftness and make sure you run through Symbols of Swiftness, or try to group with others to catch other classes Warhorns and blast finishers in Lightning fields. Blink, which is not necessary to trait, will allow you to stay with the pack. I have been non-stop farming champions and required nothing more than a focus and blink to keep with zergs.
WvW is a different story, but I don’t believe you are asking about that.