Guild Wars 2

Nice try, Chaith alt account.

Any consideration for using higher of two MMR for duo queues? Lots of duos gaming mm with one sandbagged smurf.

Let me guess, you failed to dodge Moa twice in the span of one minute.

DH is anti-fun for sure, but not to the same extent as turret engi / bunker mesmer / spirit ranger.

Anet almost always nerfs FOTM builds. I doubt DH will be an exception.

Maybe toker on rev, phanta mes, chaith scrapper. In any case, hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to look back and critique their plan knowing it didn’t work out.

SneakyTouchy.6043:

If you are actually better than 70% of the players, you will on average be matched with players who are worse. That means once you find a 50% win ratio spot, you will be doing most of the work for your team.

The first paragraph is right, but this part is incorrect. If you’re better than 70% of the players, you will on average be matched with other players that are also better than 70% of the players.

As you wait in the queue, matchmaking widens the acceptable range of players for you to play with (so you’d be matched with people in the 65% – 75% range, then 60 – 80%, then 55-85%, until there are enough players for a match). Once 10 people are found, those players are arranged such that the average rating of each team is as close to even as it can be.

As a 70% player, it’s certainly possible that you’ll play with 71% – 100% players, in which case they’ll be the ones carrying you.

The monkey wrench is with ranked queues, where matchmaking also takes your division/tier into consideration in a similar way.

Blu makes his triumphant return as the savior of gw2 esportz, but instead of casting he auctions off dates with each of the players in a desperate attempt to fund the next season of pro league.

The idea of re-adding the downed penalty is great.

IMO, if I start stomping at the same time a single ally of the downed player starts rezzing, the stomp should beat the rez regardless of downstate traits.

Adding back in the downstate penalty might be a good compromise for people who disagree.

Not a thing in spvp, but clone death traits were definitely used in roaming power phantasm builds for the weakness and cripple. They were huge benefits, not just filler to get to a certain GM trait. Seven Mirrors used it extensively and I had a video that used it in the CI lockdown variant.

Just because the forum gods didn’t give it some goofy name in an official build-claiming post doesn’t mean it wasn’t a thing.

That said, I absolutely agree with getting rid of them. They surely didn’t promote skillful play, but I was never one to intentionally handicap myself.

StickerHappy.8052:

I had this idea before, but IMO, the burns will only worth it if you get it to atleast 2 seconds.

Yeah, the burns are more supplementary. You can try to block offensively, but it only punishes bad players anyways.

Nightmare is still an OK choice, but after getting two-shot by an invocation rev I decided some toughness was nice to have. The problem is the amulets that provide toughness felt weak. Rabid guts power output, Wanderer’s was only slightly better and Viper’s guts survivability. Sage is just a bad version of Carrion given how poorly healing scales on mesmer.

We’ll see what happens with the other balance tweaks tomorrow, but so far my favorite post-nerf setup is the s2 meta build, subbing in Carrion ammy, guardian runes, and swapping out sword for scepter.

Random thoughts:

1) Guardian rune is main-stat toughness, so you only end up down about 375 toughness and the extra vit makes up for it
2) That said, you do have to play on the edges of the team fights a bit more
3) Scepter edges out sword IMO: burn on block from rune set, CI buff, confusion completely shuts down thieves (who are popping up again and benefit from decreased toughness on mesmer)
4) Shield 4 blocking precision strike procs burns (wouldn’t have thought it, but I’m no expert with technicalities of skill interactions)
5) Ineptitude > MoF, loading up on the offensive block (AoE diversion is less valuable with the reduced tankiness)
6) Starting to prefer Gravity Well over Moa: extra ranged cleave/interrupt on downed bodies is nice now that it’s harder to sit in the middle of a team fight

Called it.

cyyrix.6105:

I do wonder if the Continuum Split change will be too much work for anet on the technical side. It’s a lot easier to change a cooldown/duration/damage modifier/buff stack. Perhaps they’ll just throw a band-aid on it with something like a duration nerf on Moa.

Condition build is OP so let’s nerf traits that only indirectly affect condition application with zero thought on how that might affect power-based chrono builds.

It’s balance ideas like this that butcher build diversity.

Ananeos.4587:

https://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/59358678

about 25mins in

That timestamp is misleading. If you watch the whole thing, it’s clear they feel like most elite specs, including chrono, need to be tuned down. Sam is the only one who is particularly harsh on the mesmer, and that viewpoint isn’t surprising considering his Pro League team doesn’t have a mesmer main.

Chorazin.4107:

cyyrix.6105:

Continuum Split: This skill no longer affects elite cooldowns
Maim the Disillusioned: Reduced duration of torment to 4s
Echo of Memory & Deja Vu: Reduced block duration to 1s
Time Catches Up – Shattered clones now gain swiftness instead of superspeed

I do wonder if the Continuum Split change will be too much work for anet on the technical side. It’s a lot easier to change a cooldown/duration/damage modifier/buff stack. Perhaps they’ll just throw a band-aid on it with something like a duration nerf on Moa.

Maybe some icd’s to chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion. They still serve the function of mesmers not relying constantly on deceptive evasion for clone generation even if they have a low icd. But an icd serves to slow down how fast the shatters arrive as the mesmer either waits for ICD’s or opts for the 2nd shatter early but has to spend time rebuilding his clones/phantasms afterwards.

I wondered what all the hype was about so looked up metabattle, found the build and just patched it up with some WvW cheese(perplexity) to roam on.

It is horribly busted in small scale scenarios, Id had 0 playtime on this build when i started and the only 1v1 i lost out of about 30 fights roaming was to an exact mirror build that landed his moa b4 i did. Oh and a gunflame whereby i started the fight looking at my second monitor and the first i knew i was hit for 16k.

But for large scale conflicts the build is virtually useless, your clones/phantasms die so quickly in larger scale conflicts it’s hard to set up any kind of burst, condi or otherwise. The nerfs will come from PvP where there is some pro league players saying chronophantasma is a bit over the top.

But i think it will be ok because Condi reaper, Power Rev, and scrapper are all in line for a bit of down tuning as well.

ICD on Chronophantasma sounds plausible. I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s inline with the sort of nerfs Anet makes (i.e., tweaking numbers instead of adding new functionality).

That said, using wvw roaming as a basis for balance is bad. From what I remember about roaming there are hundreds of ridiculously broken things. Not to mention, wvw roaming is completely dead (organized dueling next to SMC is not roaming).

The devs only slightly care about wvw balance, and have zero concern for small-scale wvw. The fact that perplexity runes exist is evidence enough. It’s really too bad they don’t just make wvw use the pvp gear/trait system.

Soothsayer.9206:

Just in case you haven’t seen this yet: https://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/59358678
approximately 25 mins. into video the question come about Mesmers and patch. Taken from post in the PvP forum.

They basically argue that most of the elite specs are overtuned and need nerfs, including chrono.

Sam is the only one who picks on mesmer more than other professions (he even calls for a portal nerf after Jebro teases him about harping on mesmers 51:45). To be fair, it makes sense that he'd feel this way considering he plays on a Pro League team that doesn't have a mesmer. About the next patch, he even says (26:00):

It doesn’t matter which class will be meta, with six players that we have currently we have almost every class on our team that we can go for. The only problem would be if mesmer would be too strong that I actually need to compete with the top mesmers in EU again.

Continuum Split: This skill no longer affects elite cooldowns
Maim the Disillusioned: Reduced duration of torment to 4s
Echo of Memory & Deja Vu: Reduced block duration to 1s
Time Catches Up – Shattered clones now gain swiftness instead of superspeed

I do wonder if the Continuum Split change will be too much work for anet on the technical side. It’s a lot easier to change a cooldown/duration/damage modifier/buff stack. Perhaps they’ll just throw a band-aid on it with something like a duration nerf on Moa.

Actually reaper/condi mes is a fairly even match up, and I’m sure those that browse the reaper forum will tell you mesmer has the upperhand.

• LoS the reaper. Give your staff clones a chance to do work
• Keep in mind the reaper staff marks are unblockable. That means you should generally try to be in sw/sh when the reaper is in sc/w and staff when the reaper is in staff
• Use blink/phase retreat to throw off the reaper’s placement of marks
• Keep distance when the reaper is in shroud (most the skills are short-ranged, melee focused). Usually better to just let them burn the shroud and then save burst for the hp pool
• Watch for plague signet. Try to predict when the reaper is likely to use it, and have blurred frenzy or distortion ready
• Interrupt the heal
• If they’re loaded up with condis, chain interrupts
• If you have to use moa, make sure some condis are ticking first, or you have burst ready to ensure downstate

As a mesmer, when I first fought the chillomancer I was getting wrecked. With some practice now it’s not so bad.

You consider a game studio your lover?

Just the same stuff people have been complaining about for years. A lot of non-mesmer players think moa is OP because they only remember the times they’ve been moa’d.

They have no understanding of the number of times they’ve random dodged it or avoided it due to some rng blind or aegis proc. It’s not nearly as OP when you take that into account.

(edit: If I had to come up with one nerf for Moa, I’d say a necro’s health after getting moa’d should be either his Death Shroud bar or his HP bar, depending on when he gets moa’d. That way if they get moa’d with 5% health, but full DS, you still have to burn them down.)

The nav menu is good. Strike-through text to illustrate change is good. All the other images and tables and icons and badges and quotes just feel like UI vomit.

TBH I prefer gw2’s concise bullets to that bloat.

Sorry, you didn’t follow proper procedure on the mesmer forums to lay claim to a build.

Everyone knows that you need to post a link to the build and give it some sort of epic title like “Lawn Mowing Shattered Immortal Cat Swag Stomper v2.3 beta (scepter variant)”

rchu.8945:

no idea, but from a reddit thread, someone mentioned that Josh Davis made a comment that he was outplayed by a Mesmer recently, and then now the heavy nerf hammer dropped. It seems Anet developers (probably most dont play Mesmers, maybe just Robert Gee), have it out for Mesmers.

See thread here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4186vf/the_math_behind_alacrity_and_the_resulting/

“Kimberly013
I think that the leadership at GW2 is deliberately trying to kick Mesmer out of the game. I further think that it is pretty cowardly to hide your answers here and not respond on your own game forums.
@Josh Davis. You complained on Twitch about being outplayed by a specific Mesmer build and that build was removed from the game in the very next patch.
Did you get outplayed by a chronomancer? Is that why you hate Mesmer so much?”

Given the trend how Mesmer being nerfed for the past 3 years, I dont doubt the above is a possibility.

Don’t perpetuate a witch hunt blaming a single dev (especially not Grouch). That’s ridiculous. They may have over-nerfed mesmer, but they aren’t carrying out some personal vendetta against a profession.

skcamow.3527:

Levetty.1279:

Will there be more on patch day or is this the complete list?

Today was a small preview for all classes.

Spoiler alert. Today’s preview contained 90% of the meaningful balance changes, just like every time they’ve said that in the past.

Think about it…if there were that many more changes coming, they wouldn’t have spent time revealing a 5% increase in scepter attack speed.

We’ll see how it plays out. I’m worried it will make alacrity feel like a boon that is just nice to have, rather than one that is spec’d for and actively used.

I think nerfing alacrity from 66% recharge to 50% recharge is fine. Anything harsher than that will probably make it feel like a “meh, nice to have” boon that you don’t pay much attention to (or spec for), rather than one that is actively applied to yourself and allies.

It’s interesting to see complaints against mesmer on predicting bursts out of stealth. This has been a gripe mesmers had with thieves for a long time. Thieves would typically brush this off with these arguments:

1) We’re not invulnerable while in stealth (mesmers have too little AoE to play guessing games)
2) Count to 4 then dodge (good thieves switch up timing…also SR)
3) Use your defensive skills (works once, but too easy for thief to try stealthing again before they’re back off CD)
4) Deny stealth (see 3…also, with a BP/HS combo, a thief can still get off a 2nd HS after being interrupted by daze mantra)

I’m not defending one side or the other, but the tables have certainly turned a bit.

Nice to see Strike Force still running around taking names! Good vid.

What other class receives hotfix nerfs like this?

Wish they’d “let the meta settle” for 3 (or 9) months like healing signet…

Not to shoot the messenger, but in his own words,

Josh Davis.6015:

The release has been out for 4 hours. It’s a little early to tell.

Everyone racing to lay claim to their builds…

Inb4 “Immortal stunarino-phant-kickerupt-mower-cat 2.1 beta variant 3a”

Petition for Anet to ban Karl and Jon from touching mesmer, leaving the decisions up to Robert Gee.

Fay.2357:

cyyrix.6105:

Very true, but the idea is that by running power shatter, you’ll help your teammates score more of those “bigger victories” overall…you accept a weakness to thieves for the greater good.

Perhaps because the thief took longer to kill you, he didn’t +1 a fight somewhere else, so your team won that fight and capped the node. That’s far more valuable than 5 points!

Anyhow, at least now we’re thinking in terms of a match instead of a 1v1!

Nobody was every talking about a 1v1, you just decided to try and derail a conversation with that accusation.

Regardless, you’re failing to consider the comparative roles of a thief and mesmer on a team, so let’s take a look.

Mesmer: Aoe burst damage + finisher + boon stripping in team fights. Provides a significant amount of general team fight pressure.

Thief: Remove the enemy glass cannon from a team fight.

When you’re dealing with the thief, the thief is actually performing precisely the role that they’re on the team to do, while you’re contributing literally nothing. This is specifically the reason why the thief is such a hard counter to mesmer. Taking out mesmer IS the thief role, and in the process of fulfilling their role, they directly inhibit the mesmer from performing in the singular fashion that they’re on the team for.

You’re understating the role of the thief, but I get that you’re just trying to pick a fight with me at this point. It feels like I’m in the print version of Mesmerized, where you interrupted your co-hosts incessantly, pointing out errors in their analysis instead of trying to build a conversation. I’ll see myself out now.

Sebrent.3625:

If the Thief is downing you, it doesn’t matter how much “less useful” you make him due to it “taking more time” or “costing more initiative” … he is winning those encounters and thus giving his team an advantage.

• He scored points for his team by taking you out
• You will have more time wasted respawning and running back to the action than he will regenerating his initiative.

Those “small victories” aren’t enough to make up for these “bigger victories” that the Thief is gaining throughout the match.

Very true, but the idea is that by running power shatter, you’ll help your teammates score more of those “bigger victories” overall…you accept a weakness to thieves for the greater good.

Perhaps because the thief took longer to kill you, he didn’t +1 a fight somewhere else, so your team won that fight and capped the node. That’s far more valuable than 5 points!

Anyhow, at least now we’re thinking in terms of a match instead of a 1v1!

Sebrent.3625:

@cyrrix:
The plausibility of your “Solution 2” is what has been drawn into question. Most believe that given equal skill level, the Thief will beat the standard Power Shatter spec’d mesmer.

You either agree or disagree with this.

I agree 100% with it. But again, this is an ongoing match with 5 people on each team, not a 1v1.

Assuming the mesmer is going to die, increasing the “time to kill” can still do wonders…It might give your teammate (even a pug) enough time to finish up a fight elsewhere, then +1 you. It might force a shadow refuge out of the thief, which then can’t be used on a rez. It will definitely drain more initiative, which makes him less useful immediately after downing you.

It’s these sorts of small victories to play for, which help you survive the match. If you can actually beat the thief, that’s just icing on the cake.

Fay.2357:

Problem: Thief kills power shatter Mesmer

Solution 1: Have team peel thief.

Problem 2: PuGs don’t peel thieves.

Solution 2: Play a build that doesn’t get killed by thieves.

Problem 3a: Counter thieves, but introduce other problems because your build is less effective in other ways

Instead…

Solution 2: Learn to play against thieves more intelligently, instead of sacrificing other utility/effectiveness to counter them

Problem 3b: Still get killed by thieves, but at a lesser rate, and without sacrificing the advantages power shatter has over other builds

You prefer 3a, I prefer 3b. I think we just need to agree to disagree on this one.

StickerHappy.8052:

You are basically saying that again changing the build does not help you survive the match (WHICH IS REFERRING TO OTHER CLASSES, UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING AGAINST 5 THIEVES)

Have you ever considered that if you take too long to win a 1v1, you might get +1’d in a duel? What about if you bring poor support and lose a team fight, you are more likely to get 2v1’d off respawn?

StickerHappy.8052:

So you are saying changing the build is being less effective overall? which means correct me If I am wrong CHANGING A BUILD THAT COUNTERS THIEF IS WEAK OR USELESS AGAINST ANY OTHER CLASSES right?

Hopefully now you can see that I’m not saying that. At all. Both of the things I described above lead to more deaths and decrease your likelihood of surviving a match, while still having a more favorable individual match up against each class.

For the last time, it’s not just about build match ups. It’s about the evolution of the match as a whole. Please think a little bit before attacking me.

StickerHappy.8052:

cyyrix.6105:

StickerHappy.8052:

He didn’t ask how to duel thieves, he asked how to survive in a match with a good thief. Changing to a build that counters a thief does not help you survive the match…It just displaces the problem off the thief.

What does that mean? How do you actually not survive the match? Fall damage?

What? What?

Being less effective overall. Fewer 1v1 deaths does not make fewerdeathss in a match. Too much duel hero logic, sir.

Wow the ole twistaroo… what you meant that it does not help you survive the match was waaaay different with what your saying now..

Fewer 1v1 deaths? What makes you say 1v1? You are embarrasing yourself. You say fewer deaths in a match so it means you are referring to other builds to change to does not help you against other classes? I mean cmon now…

You are basically saying that again changing the build does not help you survive the match (WHICH IS REFERRING TO OTHER CLASSES, UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING AGAINST 5 THIEVES)

So you are saying changing the build is being less effective overall? which means correct me If I am wrong CHANGING A BUILD THAT COUNTERS THIEF IS WEAK OR USELESS AGAINST ANY OTHER CLASSES right?

OK, apparently I need to be more explicit with my argument. Hopefully we can get you and Pyro out of the duel bro logic before your heads explode in frustration…

The quality of a build is defined by more than how it individually matches up against each other profession. Other factors include:

1) The build’s ability to disengage
2) The build’s ability to decide fights quickly (or slowly, if holding a point)
2) The build’s ability to team fight

With this in mind, hopefully Pyro and Sticker can realize that they’re framing their entire argument in how a build matches up individually against each other profession. I like to call this dueling logic.

Instead they need to view a match as an ongoing engagement comprised of multiple fights at different times, with different numbers, different +1’s, different starting CD pools, and different goals for each fight.

With all this in mind, let’s take a look at Pyro’s latest signature “condescending-out-of-context-gotcha-quote” post:

Fay.2357:

cyyrix.6105:

Never said it was weak to anything else

INSTANT FACT CHECK

cyyrix.6105:

Sure a different build helps with thieves, but it makes you weaker against other stuff.

Oopsie.

You’re equating the word “stuff” to “professions”. Again, dueling logic. There’s more “stuff” in a match than how your build matches up against others. Further, in the first quote, I was responding to Sticker, who was discussing profession match ups. With this crazy thing called “context”, it’s clear that the first quote refers to match ups and the second to how build’s more general effectiveness in a match. It’s not a contradiction at all.

cyyrix.6105:

cyyrix.6105:

never said condi doesn’t help you survive.

INSTANT FACT CHECK

cyyrix.6105:

Changing to a build that counters a thief does not help you survive the match

Oopsie.

The idea here was to differentiate “surviving a match” from “surviving a fight”. Clearly that went right over your head.

Fay.2357:

cyyrix.6105:

Nope, not contradicting myself.

I’ll let everyone else figure this one out for themselves.

Telling you I wasn’t contradicting myself was my fruitless attempt to get both of you thinking about a match as a whole, rather than simply considering build match ups. I guess it didn’t work. But no, I never contradicted myself, and still haven’t.

This is not backpedaling. This is explaining my original stance to people with hasty judgment so that they might take a second to step back and think.

StickerHappy.8052:

He didn’t ask how to duel thieves, he asked how to survive in a match with a good thief. Changing to a build that counters a thief does not help you survive the match…It just displaces the problem off the thief.

What does that mean? How do you actually not survive the match? Fall damage?

What? What?

Being less effective overall. Fewer 1v1 deaths does not make fewerdeathss in a match. Too much duel hero logic, sir.

StickerHappy.8052:

cyyrix.6105:

Fay.2357:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Pyro is merrily twisting Juricas words around and pulling out semantics (Yes, I’m sassing you Pyro) as he argues that power shatter isn’t superior to other builds in this specific situation.

This isn’t really true, at least in this situation. My main point is as follows:

The OP is asking specifically for ways to deal with a thief without relying on a team for peeling. Literally every bit of advice Jurica has offered comes with the subtext of ‘so that you live long enough for your team to peel the thief’. This is absurd and unhelpful with respect to what the OP has asked. I’m pointing this out, and originally offered alternative solutions.

cyyrix.6105:

It’s not really logical. Sure a different build helps with thieves, but it makes you weaker against other stuff. Suggesting a different build is like telling someone to patch kitten in their house by tearing off a piece of the roof. It doesn’t solve anything, just displaces the problem.

The better advice in this thread comes from the posts about kiting, watching the minimap to be aware of the thief, and trying to predict/prevent steal.

Again, I feel like half the people in this thread are just completely ignoring what the OP has said. The OP asked for a simple thing: ‘How to deal with thieves without relying on a team to peel.’ That thing was provided, and then subsequently 80 people jumped on going ‘no, no, no, that’s not right. You should do this instead, and here’s how to survive long enough for your team to peel’. The absurdity of this advice is off the charts.

Except he didn’t ask for that, at all. You’re literally making up quotes. If anyone, you need to re-read the post.

He didn’t ask how to duel thieves, he asked how to survive in a match with a good thief. Changing to a build that counters a thief does not help you survive the match…It just displaces the problem off the thief.

What?!??? Nani!???!

You can never avoid 1v1 in a match, so its like a duel right???

Does not help you survive a match? Condition CI good against thief but weak against anything else?

WOW. Please people do some TESTING and a lot of PVP before you come up with outrageous posts!

Don’t even know where to start. Never said it was weak to anything else, never said condi doesn’t help you survive. Nope, not contradicting myself. I feel dumber for even acknowledging your post.

Fay.2357:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Pyro is merrily twisting Juricas words around and pulling out semantics (Yes, I’m sassing you Pyro) as he argues that power shatter isn’t superior to other builds in this specific situation.

This isn’t really true, at least in this situation. My main point is as follows:

The OP is asking specifically for ways to deal with a thief without relying on a team for peeling. Literally every bit of advice Jurica has offered comes with the subtext of ‘so that you live long enough for your team to peel the thief’. This is absurd and unhelpful with respect to what the OP has asked. I’m pointing this out, and originally offered alternative solutions.

cyyrix.6105:

It’s not really logical. Sure a different build helps with thieves, but it makes you weaker against other stuff. Suggesting a different build is like telling someone to patch kitten in their house by tearing off a piece of the roof. It doesn’t solve anything, just displaces the problem.

The better advice in this thread comes from the posts about kiting, watching the minimap to be aware of the thief, and trying to predict/prevent steal.

Again, I feel like half the people in this thread are just completely ignoring what the OP has said. The OP asked for a simple thing: ‘How to deal with thieves without relying on a team to peel.’ That thing was provided, and then subsequently 80 people jumped on going ‘no, no, no, that’s not right. You should do this instead, and here’s how to survive long enough for your team to peel’. The absurdity of this advice is off the charts.

Except he didn’t ask for that, at all. You’re literally making up quotes. If anyone, you need to re-read the post.

He didn’t ask how to duel thieves, he asked how to survive in a match with a good thief. Changing to a build that counters a thief does not help you survive the match…It just displaces the problem off the thief.

Fay.2357:

Jurica.1742:

You dont 1000000% rely on your group @ Pyro. While yes, it is a big + if they can help, as I said, most thieves one will encounter can be dealt with.

No, what you actually said was that you have issues against even decent thieves, and good thieves (and I quote) “You can’t do much about”.

Which is it? Can you deal with most thieves or do you actually have issues with even decent thieves? Pick one.

Jurica.1742:

Also people arent stupid in pugs most of the time. They will peel for you. Its a team game.

Let’s be very clear right now. I’m going to quote from the OP:

Photinous.4628:

Honestly, how do mesmers survive in pug matches when there is an opposing good thief? Of course no pug team will peel for the mesmer.

The OP is asking very explicitly how to deal with thieves in a situation where your team is not peeling for you. Stubbornly repeating ‘just let your team peel’ is merely obstinate, not helpful.

Jurica.1742:

If you’re put with people that dont peel, means their mmr is meh. If their MMR is meh, most likely enemy team will have meh MMR meaning also the thief.

This really isn’t correct. Not peeling isn’t a hallmark of low mmr, it’s a hallmark of an unorganized team…aka a pug. Peeling requires them to be aware of the focus, locate the thief, and peel. This is difficult todo effectively without VoIP, and effective peeling is one of the main distinguishing factors between an organized and unorganized team.

Jurica.1742:

Thief counters mes no matter which build you’re on.

While your previous comments at least contained some nugget of validity, this one is simply off the rails. Nothing about this statement even flirts with reality. There are multiple Mesmer builds, either highly defensive (PU variants) or condie based, or both, that are very hard counters to thief, particularly meta thief builds. Attempting to claim otherwise is nothing but foolish.

Jurica.1742:

You can also always simply disengage if you find the thief too much. If you disengage and he follows you, you didn’t disengage.

This is…cute. Mesmer has one singular way to guarantee a disengage from a determined thief, and that’s portal. All other modes of disengage are directly countered by the mobility in raw speed and access to teleports that thief enjoys over Mesmer. If the thief wants to stick to you, there is absolutely no way to truly disengage without using a portal.

Jurica.1742:

I’m starting to feel like a parrot now.
OP didnt mention anything about wanting a new build. He just said he wanted to survive longer.

What the OP asked for was methods of dealing with thieves without a team peeling for him. For some reason that remains mysterious to me, you’ve decided that ‘methods of dealing with thieves without a team peeling for him’ should mean ‘ways to let your team peel the thief for you’. I’m a bit fuzzy on that logic, so if you could clear it up for me I’d be grateful.

Jurica.1742:

And a lot of what applies in coordinated teams, often applies in pugs as well. Proper positioning, kiting, disengaging is something you’ll need in coordinated teams and pugs which is what we’ve told him to practice.

This is absolutely true, but those methods and tips when applied to a power shatter build culminate in ‘how to survive long enough for your team to peel the thief’.

The OP wants ways to deal with thieves without relying on a peel. This is not effectively possible against a thief (assuming equal skill level) if you’re using a power shatter build. Therefor, the logical step is to recommend other builds that can accomplish the goal stated by the OP.

It’s not really logical. Sure a different build helps with thieves, but it makes you weaker against other stuff. Suggesting a different build is like telling someone to patch kitten in their house by tearing off a piece of the roof. It doesn’t solve anything, just displaces the problem.

The better advice in this thread comes from the posts about kiting, watching the minimap to be aware of the thief, and trying to predict/prevent steal.

The initiative defense for chill immunity is absurd. Thieves act like getting chilled prevents them from using additional skills. No. If a thief has 15 initiative and gets chilled, he doesn’t suddenly have 10 initiative. He can use the exact same number of skills.

What chill does, is increase the cost of skills already used. Just like every other profession. It makes literally no difference if your skills draw from the same resource pool or from separate ones.

Pre-confusion nerf, the confusion shatter build was a ton of fun in wvw. That said, it relied on opponents blowing themselves up because they didn’t notice the 15 stacks of confusion that hit for 5k on each skill use. Even with confusion damage back, I’m not sure it’d be effective today.

TyPin.9860:

But more importantly: How easy/hard is it to use/hit Moa. I remember 2 times, where Moa failed. One was on a ranger, who just avoided it with a random dodge. The other one was on a necromancer, when a guardian had blinded me. Other than that, if the enemy team had a necro, I focused him right away and always made that Lich go away. Of course this is only after 2 days of testing and the result might be different after more testing. But I felt like cheating using Moa^^

Two days really isn’t much time. Also, you’re not the first to complain about Moa. It’s gone through both nerfs and re-buffs. It sure feels like cheating when you’re on the receiving end, but it’s easy to forget about all of the times you dodged it or were able to flee/LoS until it expired.

The fact remains that Moa didn’t see much high level play until the last 8 months or so (around when Lich started to become popular). That’s because it isn’t as strong as you think, not because there’s some unwritten honor code about overpowered elites.

StickerHappy.8052:

Windwalker.7421:

No contradiction at all. I didn’t even entertain your suggestion to change it, because it is based on the completely false premise that Moa is even close to comparable in effectiveness as Lich. If either of the two needs a nerf, it sure ain’t Moa.

So none of my statements are addressing your suggestions, but rather are a response to the ridiculous notion of nerfing Moa in order to help Lich, which is clearly the far better of the two Elites.

Moa is more effective than lich, how? cast it from stealth you get an unavoidable moa, no tells, no counterplay. Unless they get a lucky dodge or block.

Lich on the other hand? Reflects eat lich alive, (which we have a lot), lich can be stripped on stab (making him susceptible to CC for a short period of time), You can just runaway from lich, you can LOS lich, you can immob lich then runaway, I mean this should be a no brainer, Lich is very squishy as kitten.

I mean come on, I am not defending necro by any chance, I would rather be constructive and fair on arguments If I were you. I do not want to sound like the thieves forum.

You are saying Lich is better than Moa? how? Do you see a condimancer run lich?
Moa can be ran by any mesmer build and still produce very effective results.

Necros have elites that synergize with their builds. Condimancers don’t run Lich because Plague exists. It’s weird that you’re using that as an argument for mesmer elites being more effective. I’m sure condi mesmers would love to run an elite that spammed conditions instead of Moa Morph.

Also, stealth casting Moa Morph is not a guarantee. Even if it was, that means it takes an extra CD just to land the skill.

It seems like a lot of players see transforms as god modes, where they can just spam offensive skills for x seconds while ignoring enemy casts. Moa keeps that in check.

This post embodies everything that I love about the stereotypical thief personality. Just two thieves:

• rng-ing themselves to death in a made up game mode
• playing mirror builds because that’s somehow a better differentiator of skill
• making passive aggressive observations about the other’s play

Best of all, it’s all done on top of the truckload of salt that is copy-pasting a prior post’s template that did the exact same thing. OP’s post is a work of art.

Definitely a bug but hopefully a sign of things to come. This change was announced about two years ago as a fix for the crazy numbers of perma stealth dp thieves in wvw, but then they backed down and made other changes. Hopefully with the strength of that new SA GM minor, the devs will stand their ground this time. Stealth should be used to confuse the enemy, not reset fights.

Wow, some of this stuff really looks fantastic. Will be fun to try.

How long has Robert been working on gw2? It’s refreshing to finally have someone who understands mesmer interacting with the community.

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Jedge.3619:

Consume plasma is another issue. 10sec of almost all the boons in the game.

This is about to become even more of an issue, right?

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/gw2-improvisation.jpg

I think they mentioned looking at some steal abilities with this change. Hopefully they realize how absurd consume plasma is (it’s beyond me why they nerfed lyssa runes but left consume plasma untouched).