Guild Wars 2

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

nomdeplums.5780:

Mesmers don’t need additional baseline functionality. That just makes the class more difficult to balance and creates builds with no trade-offs or opportunity costs. Shatter mesmer was always high-risk, high-reward, and it should stay that way.
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As I already mentioned, mesmer is a very difficult class to balance properly. If we remember the perfect storm of a bunch of slightly overtuned skills culminating into the balance nightmare that was Chronobunker. There wasn’t a particular trait or skill that made Chronobunker inherently overpowered (except for maybe Well of Precognition). It was a bunch of spread out traits and abilities that were simply too effective when you combined them together.

Likewise, if you just give a blanket baseline buff to mesmer, there could be unintended consequences. Condition shatter is probably what I would worry about the most. It’s already fairly viable at high level play. If you give it a nudge with a baseline buff to shatter functionality it could become very overtuned. If you’re going to buff shatter mesmer you need to create mutual exclusivity. What am I going to give up to gain a more effective burst?

I think those last two points are more indicative of how badly chrono was designed as an elite spec and how they try to balance the class differently compared to other elite specs.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-April-19-2016/first#post6122828
When reaper was considered OP, they could nerf RS#3, 4 and 5 while not touching DS #3, 4 and 5.

When chrono was considered OP, they couldn’t nerf chrono F1-F4. They wouldn’t nerf F5 because it’s the only new class mechanic added. They had to/chose to nerf base mesmer.

If a buff to base mesmer F1 functionality wasn’t a buff to Chrono F1, they could actually balance a high risk-high reward base shatter mesmer with a support and defensive shatter spam on chrono.

I’ll half agree with that. There are two parts to the problem. One is that Chronomancer as an elite spec has to be balanced around the mechanics which affect CDs: Alacrity and Continuum Split. I don’t know if I would call this inherently bad design, but I’ll acknowledge that it can be problematic or at best require additional caution when it comes to balance decisions.

So far though, it’s only really been a problem in one game mode. If you combine a bunch of really strong defensive traits and skills together and add in an elite spec that can either reset CDs or make them dramatically faster, AND you play it on a gamemode that revolves entirely around capturing and holding nodes, then you have a problem. Chronomancer only really has a problematic design when it comes to defensive mechanics. There was never a gamebreaking burst or DPS Chronomancer build that needed to be nerfed; only a really stupid bunker build. That doesn’t mean that an OP damage chrono build couldn’t somehow appear if buffs were introduced, but I don’t think that means that Chronomancer is a design failure. You can introduce and balance shatter buffs with Chronomancer, you just need to focus on traits so you create choices and trade-offs.

A lot of the things we don’t like about balance are simply because of Conquest. There are builds and specs which are viable for holding and fighting on node, but would make a lot less sense in a different context.

Mesmers don’t need additional baseline functionality. That just makes the class more difficult to balance and creates builds with no trade-offs or opportunity costs. Shatter mesmer was always high-risk, high-reward, and it should stay that way.

The biggest reason shatter mesmer became unviable is because HoT introduced a lot of builds that are just really effective at mitigating or avoiding burst, or make it much more difficult for mesmers to setup their burst. Scrapper is probably the most egregious example. It’s a very tanky spec to begin with, and the hammer makes it extremely easy to avoid bursts while simultaneously cleaving through clones and pressuring a mesmer. It also has a silly amount of passive stability uptime. Mesmers rely on well-timed interrupts to burst or change the outcome of a fight. There is just so much passive or pulsing stab in HoT that it makes bread and butter shatter traits like Power Block useless half the time.

Shatter mesmer also just crumbles under sustained pressure without a very supportive team comp. If a mesmer doesn’t decide a fight within a short window of time, it’s going to be outsustained and outdamaged because there’s just such an absurd disparity with the sustained DPS of mesmers compared to other classes. In an ideal world, we’d just look at this as an inherent weakness of mesmer and a normal part of balance: a bursty class shouldn’t be able to throw out high sustained DPS at the same time. But the reality is there are other classes who can dish out similar or better bursts, have high sustained DPS to confirm a kill, AND have better survivability (i.e. thief, revenant).

As I already mentioned, mesmer is a very difficult class to balance properly. If we remember the perfect storm of a bunch of slightly overtuned skills culminating into the balance nightmare that was Chronobunker. There wasn’t a particular trait or skill that made Chronobunker inherently overpowered (except for maybe Well of Precognition). It was a bunch of spread out traits and abilities that were simply too effective when you combined them together.

Likewise, if you just give a blanket baseline buff to mesmer, there could be unintended consequences. Condition shatter is probably what I would worry about the most. It’s already fairly viable at high level play. If you give it a nudge with a baseline buff to shatter functionality it could become very overtuned. If you’re going to buff shatter mesmer you need to create mutual exclusivity. What am I going to give up to gain a more effective burst?

The best starting point for this is probably the most neglected traitline that mesmers have: Illusions. It’s supposed to revolve around shatters but a lot of the choices and traits are very underwhelming. The GM traits in particular are pretty bad. Master of Fragmentation is basically a hodgepodge of a bunch of different pre-specialization era traits combined together. It sounds ok on paper, but doesn’t amount to much. Malicious Sorcery is useless because even with the attack speed buff to scepter, your sustained dps will still be garbage. Try trading autos with any other class and see how that goes for you. Ineptitude gets picked up for condi shatter builds but only because the other traits are just so useless. If you’re going to introduce buffs, you could do it here. A trait that gives clones temporary distortion or a trait that makes shatters unblockable. There are plenty of possibilities.

(Edit: the only baseline buff that I am pretty supportive of would be buffing the HP of phantasms and clones based on weapons. Melee based clones/phantasms could do with higher HP. This has the added bonus of not affecting condi shatter or having to deal with the possibility of an infinite supply of unkillable staff clones.)

Oh, lemme just shoehorn this whiny jab at ESL players into my angry thread at Devs for not developing my favorite gamemode and map. That’ll show em!

Sometimes I actually wish the 0.1% population of esports players actually had that much of a say or influence on development priorities as you think they do. I mean, I wouldn’t trust them on class balance as far as I could throw them, but they probably would have a better idea on how to improve Stronghold, PvP leagues, etc. It certainly couldn’t be worse than we have right now.

Honestly, if you’re going to run portal AND torch, you should be using them to slip out of dead end fights and pressure the far point.

Otherwise, if you’re gonna be hyper-involved in team fights, like you seem to prefer, I would run a different offhand. Same goes for Power Block. Doesn’t make as much sense to run it given the few amount of interrupts that are going off with torch, but it would be good with another weapon.

Shatter is still a very viable build, even in comparison with thieves (yes, even post-patch). I think the skill floor of mesmers in the general population has been trending downwards for quite a while, and people followed incentives to play builds and classes that were more rewarding for a particular meta.

I’d like to see more teams with the imagination and dedication to use a shatter mesmer in different ways; beyond just making use of portal or moa.

But the Elite burst build, dragonhunter, would have the same HP as the non-elite burst, standard meditation, assuming you used the same amulet. Why is the amount of HP the specific problem that makes it currently unviable?

Elementalists don’t have as many blocks and active defenses as either revenant or engineer. Their HP pool is balanced around the amount of healing and defensive boons they have access to, which is greater that of revenant or engineer.

Why not just bring revenant survivability in line by toning down their actual defenses? Why is adjusting their HP pool a better option?

Does engineer sustain actually need to be toned down? Why? The most popular build as of late are variations of scrapper with preferences skewed towards very defensive choices in build. Why should an engineer that builds defensively be easier to kill? Won’t reducing the base HP just pigeonhole engineers into running tanky bruiser builds even more than they already are?

Why is it desirable to open up burst builds for guardians by buffing their base HP (which honestly, if you’ve been looking around, is already viable given the prevalance of dragonhunters), but not for engineer? Guardians have high sustain and mitigation inherent to the class already. They have at least as many blocks as engineers. Is their HP not already balanced around those defenses and mitigation? Why then buff the base HP of guardian but lower it for engineer?

Does thief need to be able to deal more damage? What’s preventing them from running soldier or sentinel amulet right now? A thief with a sentinel amulet has 23,645 HP. Don’t they already have a lot of mitigation with evades? Why do we need to see a strong thief bunker or bruiser in the meta?

Are warriors outclassed by revenants and engineers because those two classes have too much HP? Isn’t there an inherent difference in the tools available to each class and their utility? If warrior is pushed out of the meta by revenant and engineer, who’s to say it won’t be pushed out by thief if its HP is buffed?

Has it occurred to you that there are supposed to be inherent flaws and weaknesses to certain builds and classes that are proportional to their strengths? This is a magical concept called “balance.”

Every single one of your justifications comes down to “Well, X class has Y ability. Rev should be just as good.”

The only nerf I think is even worthwhile in the original post is the Chaotic Dampening one. Alacrity is hardly an issue, and most mesmers aren’t using Well of Recall.

The reason why bunker mesmer is imbalanced is because it has way too much damage mitigation in a gamemode that revolves around surviving on a node. At the same time, there isn’t an individual piece of the build that you can point to as the main culprit. It’s a perfect storm combination of a lot of different things which makes it difficult to balance without hurting other builds.

But I still think there are reasonable shaves that could be implemented. As some people have mentioned, the focus should be on targeting selfish defenses as opposed to team support or function.

-Stability duration on Bountiful Disullusionment should be reduced to 2 or 3 seconds
-Deja Vu should be removed from shield. Increase the block duration to 3 seconds to compensate.
-Well of Precognition should prevent capture-point contribution, and it shouldn’t be able to be used with buff channeling.

I’m sure we all remember how the old point-based leaderboard functioned, and many would agree that it heavily favored those who simply grinded a massive amount of games. Even with a sub 50% win rate, you could conceivably make it to the top 50 so long as you played enough games. I think many people rightfully saw this as a very flawed system.

When you compared the point-based leaderboard to the previous leaderboards which were based entirely on player rating, there was a pretty big distinction in which players were at the top of the leaderboard. In the rating-based leaderboards, the top players were those who perennially appeared on top teams and competed in various events. In the point-based system, we had a new class of players who simply had all the time in the world to waste grinding matches. So part of the problem is just determining what we want our systems of recognition, be they leaderboard ranking or leagues, to actually reflect. Do we want it to be an expression of statistical performance, or amount of time played? If the recent systems released by ANet serve as any indication, they heavily favor the latter.

This new system based on leagues is being pitched to us as a complete revamp of PvP recognition and progression, but let me ask you this: what is the fundamental difference between (a): being matched based on MMR and being rewarded a certain number of points based on your performance that determines your place in the leaderboards; and (b): being matched based on a mix of MMR and League division, and being rewarded a certain number of pips based on your performance that determines your league division.

Answer? A shiny UI, and a reward system to make a backpiece. The underpinnings of the Leagues system are the exact same as the grindy point-based leaderboards. I will acknowledge that after reaching Ruby Division, it becomes more difficult to progress without a higher win ratio, but the fact remains that the basis of recognition still largely skews towards number of games played as opposed to performance.

I would much rather see a system in place which attempts to more closely correlate recognition with MMR.

That’s a great point about the CD reduction for manipulations and Mirror. But as you said, apart from that it can be pretty situational. I still think it belongs in C. Probably on the higher end of C to the lower end of B. Like the tier description says, it can be effective at countering particular teams. It’s definitely not useless.

Also thanks for your list. Made me realize that I forgot to rank a couple of utilities.

I said it was my opinion. You’re welcome to offer your own list, or your own justification for why you think Mirror is viable.

As it stands, Mirror heals 261 per second. Ether Feast heals 271 per second base, and heals 374 per second with 3 illusions.

At best, would move Signet of Inspiration up to C. It’s a big trade-off compared to other utilities for what you get.

Boon sharing mesmer is completely outclassed by other classes that give out more boons more consistently. At the same time, I wouldn’t put it past anyone to come up with some crazy support Chronomancer build that would change my mind.

The healing per second is the glaring issue for me with Mirror. Projectiles aren’t really a huge deal even with Dragonhunter coming in (especially given that LB ranger looks dead in the water and every engie and their mothers are using hammer), and you have other tools to deal with them.

Mirror should be like the Mesmer version of thief Withdraw, but the healing just sucks in comparison and instead of evading everything it just reflects for two seconds.

DISCLAIMER: These rankings strictly apply to 5 man sPvP, Conquest mode in particular. May contain OPINIONS.

S: These utilities are above the focal point of balance. They are exceedingly effective for their given CD, and can be used well with nearly any given build.

None

A: These utilities are at the focal point of balance. They have balanced CDs and effects, and include your various quintessential “first pick” utilities that you can expect to see on a wide variety of builds.

Ether Feast
Well of Eternity
Decoy
Portal
Blink
Well of Precognition
Mass Invisibility
Signet of Humility
Gravity Well

B: These utilities are still strong, but may require particular builds and trait setups to maximize their effects, or may have a slightly overlong CD for the given effect.

Mantra of Recovery
Mantra of Pain
Mantra of Distraction
Mantra of Resolve
Null Field
Well of Calamity
Time Warp

C: These utilities are below the point of balance. They can be effective in niche scenarios to counter the enemy team or with very niche builds, but they often have much stronger alternatives within a team composition and are rarely utilized.

Feedback
Signet of the Ether
Mirror
Mantra of Concentration
Signet of Domination
Signet of Illusions
Well of Action
Well of Recall
Illusion of Life
Mirror Images

D: These utilities are well below the point of balance. They have laughable effects and CDs, and are widely considered useless. Should only be used for trolling hotjoins.

Arcane Thievery
Veil
Mimic
Phantasmal Defender
Phantasmal Disenchanter
Signet of Midnight
Signet of Inspiration

Absolute nonsense. Timing balance patches around the pro season still makes balance way too infrequent. Other competitive games have dedicated, full-time balance teams with no qualms about dropping multiple, meta-changing balance patches in the middle of a season.

Two weeks is plenty of time to adjust for anyone serious about the game. I would even add further that any concern for how pro players are affected by balance changes sets a bad precedent for how the developers make decisions and take in feedback. Players in the competitive scene already have the wrong kind of influence in balance decisions, and the developers rely way too much on player feedback and suggestions. It doesn’t seem like the developers who work on balance, with some outliers, closely follow the competitive scene enough, or have an in-depth understanding of how PvP is played at the highest level that is necessary to make informed, timely, and firm decisions about balance. Apart from some vague platitudes they’ve offered, the developers don’t seem to have a clear vision or direction for balancing the game. The approach to balance has consistently been reactive as opposed to proactive, as developers take simply too long to address glaring issues (like the dominance of D/D elementalist in conquest), and it feels like they’ve been mostly tugged along into action by a vocal chorus of player complaints (which I will emphasize again, should not be the bread and butter of how you make decisions).

And to be fair, a large part of these problems stem from the simple fact that there has been no dedicated and full-time balance team working at ArenaNet. It seems like we’ve only had developers who have been pulled away from other projects and duties and gathered together every 4-6 months to pump out a balance patch. Maybe the start of the pro season and leagues indicates an interest by ArenaNet to allocate the resources that PvP sorely needs. Maybe the addition of Stronghold will invite a fresh and active approach to balance. Ultimately, it remains to be seen.

Elementalist would be perfectly fine if they removed Celestial amulet.

Elementalist doesn’t need to be nerfed. Celestial amulet needs to be removed.

There’s very little to comment on here.

Most of what people post about is to have rock nerfed so that scissors can win, etc. The loudest complaints about balance typically come from people who don’t compete with a team, and spend most of their time solo queueing and form their EXPERT OPINIONS from their narrow and very limited experience.

Even though Conquest is a 5-man mode, and game balance works around this number, much of the discussion centers around what happens to people 1v1. No one talks about team compositions. No one talks about rotations or strategy. No one talks about how different classes serve different roles and how they should be used as part of a team.

So yeah, the bar is too low on the forums for it to even merit serious thought.

From my experience, experienced players in the competitive community are usually very willing to help out or comment on something when they are approached politely and earnestly. If you want to hear their thoughts, go find them in-game.

Mesmer cleave on a downed player is highly dependent on having a visible target, so stealth counters it fairly well.

I’m not sure what kind of balancing you are arguing in favor of. Less interrupts? Less boonstrip? Less damage? Mesmer res denial is basically the same as it was prepatch, not counting the boost to damage.

Do you really think that you should be able to res in any scenario against any class?

I wish zerker builds were viable without air and fire sigils too.

Shatter mesmer does perfectly fine against thieves.

The problem is most shatter mesmers insist on being chained to a particular weapon and utility setup (staff/GS with portal) and aren’t flexible about changing their build or play-style to match the opponent in a given match.

I’m not sure if the ramifications of the patch have fully seeped in yet, and a lot of people seem to be completely glossing over some really significant things (hello, sigil of torment).

This patch has definitely tipped the balance towards condi-centric builds as opposed to might-stacking hybrids, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the abundance of D/D eles in high level teams is phased out in favor of something else.

I honestly prefer this kind of balance through buffs and promoting build diversity rather than hard nerfs.

Good night, sweet prince.

Also noticing this issue, and I’m not sure why. My hardware was fine running high textures before, I’m not sure what the point was in taking the choice away from users.

Booms.2594:

weapon sets?

I’m comfortable with a variety of weapons, but I prefer sword/focus and greatsword

I’m grateful for the kind words. I’m still looking for a team as of this post.

Hi, I generally go by the name De Sade, but you may have seen me around on a mesmer by the pretentious name of Arete De Beauvoir. (Although even if you had seen me, I’m not a particularly memorable player.) I’m a fairly well-versed shatter mesmer, who also has access to every class, and can play a variety of builds pretty competently. If I were to order my competency in a given class by descending order, it would start with mesmer, then thief, elementalist, and guardian. For other classes, I could not reasonably say that I am confident enough to have someone rely on me to play them, but I am willing to devote the time to learn what’s needed given the circumstances and changing meta.

A good portion of my time has been spent queued alone, but I am comfortable working and communicating in a team environment, and generally employ Teamspeak 3 or some other medium for competitive play.

I hardly consider myself satisfied or complacent with my current level, and I am mainly looking for a team that is willing and able to give me focused and constructive criticism and devote time to practice. I’m pretty ambitious, am not easily discouraged by loss or failure, and am always looking to improve some element of my play. I’m in it for the long haul, and I’m not looking to join a team as a spur of the moment whim. This includes aiming seriously at tournaments and other competitive events.

I breached the solo queue top 100 some time ago, and have since abandoned it in favor of team queue. I’ll let the fluctuating ranking I’ve had speak for itself. I’m willing to jump through the necessary hoops any team might have for a try-out or to satisfy any concerns.

My schedule is a bit up in the air at the moment given the start of a new year at university, but I expect to be generally free to play every day during late-afternoon/evening PST. Regardless, I am pretty flexible in accommodating most schedules.

Feel free to whisper me, or send me forum and in-game mails. Thanks for your time.

Chris.3290:

I’m asking because the projected teams have SoR, Mag, and FA all on the same color; all servers that are “about the fights” and don’t care overly much about PPT. If they come out in force, it’s going to be a one-sided bloodbath and will be the most hated patch in the history of MMOs.

My body is ready.

Please stop talking about FA as though its guilds all operate under the framework of focusing on PPT, score, or winning matches. We don’t care much for that. We would, however, be happy to GvG.

Thanks.

So, I log on to find Mag in second place. Thank the match-up gods.

Hopefully they’ll become a consistent replacement to the siege war snorefest that was SoS.

Looking for small man scrimmages, preferably 8 or less. Whisper me or mail if you’d like to set something up.

All I’m seeing is exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims against RET and RAM.

If you want to prove a point and get them away from the ACs they apparently love so much, you have recourse. It’s called a GvG, and I’m certain either guild would be willing to do one with NOPE.

Or, you could just keep complaining on the forums and parsing the record of who wipes who.

CNB and NOPE
Sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S, you can’t 2v1 our keep.

GFs with GF. Those scrimmages were tons of fun, and we should do some more.

We’ll have to form a Holy Pickle fanclub too.

Many, many thanks to EP on behalf of RET.

Hard lessons learned. We hope to face you again in better shape.

Most solid TC group I’ve seen thus far is CERN. Not so sure about everyone else. TC isn’t quite the same without KH and EP.

Also, we have the same 6-7 people chest thumping every match-up thread, so try not to extrapolate their views to the rest of the server.

Had good fights in the Sanctum with TE and sC past two days. Thanks for fun, and we hope to see more SBI guilds get involved in gvgs.

My nomination goes to NSP. I’ll never forget those fun fights with tM, SPCA, and Holy, and I hope they never forget the Abe Lincoln thief. That was the best match-up of Silver League hands down.

I’d like to offer sincere thanks to [Orb] for taking the time to GvG [RET]. We really hope that you all stay in the scene, and keep searching for challenges. You guys will grow with time, no doubt.

The upcoming patch offers a boon of convenience to guilds interested in GvGs, and we want to see a diverse field of competition as more and more guilds hopefully get involved. I’ll extend my thanks to every guild who takes time out of the week to GvG.

See you all on the field, and I hope to see you soon in the Obsidian Arena.

I’m still looking for some small team fights (in the vicinity of 2-5 man teams). If you’re interested in arranging something, send me a mail or whisper.

I want to see a tie between FA and SBI just for the possible controversy and forum hilarity it would cause.

If you’re interested in arranging any small team fights (3-5 man) send me a mail or whisper.

Also, fight club is nightly at the windmill of FA BL. Starts at 10 pm, ends whenever. Show up for duels and other fun small fights.

Third night of fight club begins again at the windmill of FABL! Come for small fights and duels.

Second night of fight club begins again at the windmill of FA BL! Come for small fights and fun.

Thanks to everyone who showed up to fight club tonight! Great duels and a few interesting team fights. I hope to see you all tomorrow same time, same place: FABL south camp, around 10:00 PM server time. Do whisper me if you’re interested in organizing some team fights.

Opening night of fight club to be held in FA BL windmill! Come one, come all!

Also, whisper me to set up some 5v5s and other assorted small fights, or if simply you want some people to show up for duels.

Let’s make this last night a good one. Fight club at FABL windmill. Bring your niche 1v1 builds.

Anyone down for duels should come to FA BL windmill.

Every guild on NSP and BP has the recourse to prove that they can beat FA with even numbers. It’s called a GvG.

RET and HOPE are accepting challenges and are probably bored enough to accept as many as they can. Other FA guilds are no doubt interested as well.

Sincere thanks to GLOB for taking the time to GvG both RET and HOPE back-to-back. Those were some fun fights to participate in and watch.

We hope that GLOB stays active in the GvG scene, and that more YB guilds become interested in it and rise to the challenge. It would be very nice to see a larger field of competition in silver league.