Guild Wars 2

Mogar.9216:

Lewis Burnell.2493:

It’s pretty impossible for a Mesmer to win against an equally skilled Thief. A single Stealth + Mug can almost kill you. If they re-stealth, you’re doomed the moment your stealth runes out.

I’m not the best mesmer player by a long shot and I have played over 200 ranked pvp matches 99% of them solo Q. So either I’m the luckiest person in the world that I happen to run into all bad thieves or that it is possible to beat a thief with the right setup. I run GS/Staff Assassin amulet and play like a shatter mesmer .
Now in wvw thieves does hard counter me because all the gear + food makes their dps so high that there is nearly no counter. What I find in pvp is that you can tank a thief for a short while with a staff out. If you have ate away a large chunk of their health with GS (range advantage) the slow condi damage from staff + shatter pressure is usually enough to either kill them or force them to flee.

You are not playing against thieves of a high skill level then. A good thief will 99% of the time eat up an equally skilled mesmer in both pvp and wvw.

Arc Lightning is not useless, it stays casted when you swap attunements, so you can use it to proc fresh air and get right back into an air burst.

I stopped using it after they “fixed” it, I personally just went back to 20/20/0/0/30 shatter

You are right, it’s not like they were like, “kitten mesmers, lets reduce their damage.” However, in a meta where conditions are already often the strongest choice, nerfing the one other playstyle does not make ANY sense to me. Today, it is pretty much impossible to beat a condi warrior or a full dire necro with a glassy shatter build, with the reduction of damage, it is definitely going to be impossible. I guess all they want is mesmers to roll either condi cheese or some stupid non-viable support build nowadays.

See, the thing is, in the current meta, condition based builds ALREADY reign supreme. I cannot fathom why anet thought it would be a good idea to nerf power based builds, they are already outclassed by tanky condition builds as it is. It just goes to show that anet does not give two kittens about WvW players, this is obviously a patch for PvE players with regard to running full zerk. It appears that all I am going to bring to the table now as as a shatter mesmer are potential interrupts and aoe boonstrip. The whole burst portion of shatter mesmer is going to get seriously shafted. Can’t wait to see tanky warriors and necros running condition builds after this patch.

I completely agree, this is almost forcing some classes to go tanky condi, which is something that I feel is dulling down the game. A glass cannon character should be able to output a serious amount of damage, much more than someone who is in full dire. The risk/reward of direct damage vs crit damage is way off in this game. Someone who is specced purely for damage should ouput much more damage than someone in full dire gear. This is an inherent problem with the way conditions work in this game, and unfortunately is something that does not seem like anet cares about.

This nerf to crit damage is too much, it is going to make my shatter mesmer almost unusable in competitive fights.

I find it annoying, I have not seen anything but nerfs in regards to shatter mesmer for a very long time, which I have dealt with. Now they are reducing damage across the board, trying to make Mesmer condition builds (which are already very strong and cheesy as is) even stronger. It’s almost like they are trying to get rid of all of the skilled shatter mesmers, and make them reroll thieves.

Okay, I’ve been around on reddit, and people are circlejerking about how damage reduction is up to 40%. While I did not believe it, it was slightly unnerving, as my small group (5-8 player) shatter build has been working wonders since release. I do not want to jump on the PU bandwagon, but I fear that I am going to have to re-spec to more of an interrupt build, which I enjoy running while solo, but while in a group I admit that it is hard for me to time a clutch interrupt. I guess only time will tell, we will have to wait until the patch. Until then, I am going to enjoy shattering while I still can.

With these new Ferocity changes, it appears that there is going to be a much higher than expected nerf to critical damage from the previously thought 10%. Right now in small organized fights/roaming, a shatter mesmer brings three things to the table: AOE Vuln, Boonstrip, and Burst. While these changes to critical damage are not going to touch the first two, I am concerned about our potential burst.

With tanky condition builds already as prevalent as they are, I fear that a high reduction in burst damage that we bring to the table will make us become even more obsolete. I also fear that a lot of people are just going to now roll tanky condition builds, which mesmers already have a problem dealing with (without a heal-guard constantly keeping you alive). This, coupled with the fact that we are going to have reduced damage output, have me considering that shatter mesmer is going to get shafted hard by this patch.

Overall, these changes to critical damage have me fearing for shatter mesmers. It seems that I am going to be forced to either roll condition or lockdown builds now. If someone like Pyro could confirm just how much critical damage is going to be reduced that would be great.

Wow, can’t wait to play my shatter mesmer in group play after this patch!
/s

Guess we should just all roll condis, it seems thats what anet wants us to do.

I honestly do not give two kittens about PVE, this is not going to change anything there tbh. People will still run their zerker builds, this is doing nothing for build diversity.

However, in WvW, this is literally the opposite thing that should have happened. Condi bombs/spam are already EXTREMELY prevalent and pretty much required in small group play, so what does anet do? The logical thing, of course, which is reducing burst damage that can be done. In small organized fights, coordinating bursts (namely with mesmers and thieves) is a huge part of the game. Reducing damage (by 10%, hopefully this will not increase even more) makes coordinating huge bursts (especially with mesmer, getting 4k mind wracks is no easy feat, requires much setup in order to execute) much more difficult, and it seems that tanky condition builds will still reign supreme.

agroovywalrus.3821
Maguuma
Tester
Playtime- Varied

WvW and PVP

Gotta say that [Meow] is pretty cool. Wish you guys didnt treb our WK so quickly, would have liked to have more duels.