Guild Wars 2

tobascodagama.2961:

I guess the real question is: Does this change anybody’s builds, or does it just make the existing ones (that don’t rely on permastealth) a little nicer to play?

Well the phantasm change is likely to change how I would play when casting from stealth.

For example previously I may decoy or prestige and kite while casting iMage or iWarlock. Now that’s going to be a bad idea for iMage because not only will it break stealth but also the aoe burn will not do anything unless you’re near to your target.

Other than that I’m not changing anything, so tbh back to other games and waiting for Mirage.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The community really brings me down more often than anything else. Random tomfoolery disrupting things to “this game sucks” all over the place, to “kill your ranger and roll a warrior lol”.

Honestly, this is the top thing which makes me want to not log in on any given day.

This. Although you do run into a lot of friendly people, as in any multiplayer game/community you do suffer the misfortune of coming across the occasional… well… kitten.

But of course this can’t be changed – kittens will be kittens, no matter the situation.

The only thing I seriously hope is LEAVE ILLUSIONARY REVERSION ALONE!

I personally, selfishly don’t care what they do to other traits, but if they do something horrible like slapping an ICD on illusionary reversion before I even have a chance to play a kittening Chronomancer in the next beta, I will be very kittened off. >:(

What do you use it for?

Just asking, because I use ctrl for jump (switch positions of caps lock and ctrl on my keyboard), so a toggle would be a hindrance for me. Unless it was an optional checkbox…

messiah.1908:

if they gonna nerf mtd they should decrease the duration not the stacks. so from 6 seconds to 4 seconds (33% nerf and not 50%)

Yeah I agree with this.

Otherwise I’d say move MtD back to grandmaster, keep it at 2 stacks for 6 seconds – make it build defining as it should be and currently is.

VIVorcha.7853:

1. Largo (as long as they sound like the Quarians from Mass Effect. I can’t be the only person who thought Sayeh reminded them of Tali)

<snip>

Renegade Tali with a very big shotgun. :p

Choppy.4183:

Curunen.8729:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

EvilSardine.9635:

Mesmers are broken as hell in my opinion and are the easiest class to play at the moment.

The massive burst they can pull off from stealth (pretty often too) is absurd. They can disengage a fight whenever they want as well.

There’s a certain setup I use which is straight up unkillable yet does massive damage. I gave this build to my wife who just leveled her mesmer to 80 and was just constantly winning any fight she got into.

I stopped running mesmer because it makes me a lazy player. It basically took the fun out of the game because there’s zero risk of dying.

I’ve also lost a lot of my reason to play mesmer atm due to how easy it is. It’s just too faceroll right now.

So why don’t the both of you play a version of the build without the stuff they added?

At least one poster put up a build that is functionally equivalent to pre-patch. You can go and have your no-faceroll mesmer, and it will still be a mesmer.

Why don’t you?

I agree – it’s still possible to handicap yourself to be “balanced” if preferred.

It’s impressive when people can include that in an argument that the class is balanced while maintaining a straight face, amirite?

I can’t recall if Alpha thinks the class is balanced, but I know the person who came up with the “pre-patch” build does, more or less.

I recall agreeing with you on mesmer changes in other threads, so I think you know where I stand (I’ve also restated it in this thread).

Regardless, I see no reason to “not play mesmer” because it is the focus of community hatred and OP builds are possible.

If a player enjoys a class for it’s theme (and not the relative challenge or combat efficiency), they will stick with it no matter what. It is just as much FotM to reroll to a “more difficult” class as it is to reroll to an “easier” class – meaning you value gameplay challenge over a class itself – nothing wrong with that at all, just pointing it out.

Personally I don’t use CS, PU, BD, MoD – and funnily enough it’s nothing to do with trying to handicap myself but purely because I don’t enjoy those traits.

For example you might find this funny but I don’t use BD because I don’t like its sound effect – and also I value the lower cooldown on mainhand sword. I don’t use PU because I find the duration TOO long – for example to combo prestige into chaos storm for aoe chaos armour and similar.

StickerHappy.8052:

Condirupt is even possible now

Indeed.

Mistrust and Confusing combatants will be great additions to any condition interrupt build.
CI and scepter traits are even more powerful.

I’m probably still going to take Inspiration because traited focus is too much fun in that kind of build, even if not optimal, but depending on how the “Elite spec” line turns out (as it is rumoured to be cc/support oriented, and could have “slow” condition access) I may drop either chaos or duelling and pick that up instead.

Otherwise taking Duelling, Chaos and Illusions with Scepter/Pistol and Staff will be nasty for a condition interrupt build.

Temporal curtain looks like it should be good though.

From what I’ve seen, I agree this is stupid.

Even though I don’t plan on that kind of playstyle, I can see how horrible this is for build variety and unique counterplay.

Now every new GM trait is beyond useless (ok, maybe main the disillusioned is worth it, if you’re into that sort of thing…), and I will not bother with any of them. Seeing as they were one of the major patch features, it has boiled down to a whole lot of nothingness.

Add to that unsuccessful bug fixes and negligable skill changes for the most part, and I can’t see anything that this patch has brought to the table for mesmer specifically. So much for a “big patch” in terms of class specific changes…

The best parts are the wardrobe and some of the new pvp features.

BeepBoopBap.2840:

serj.8214:

BeepBoopBap.2840:

I don’t understand how wanderers or carrion amulets are bunker? Lol.

Easy, bunker is a class that can absorb dmg for some time and its doesnt mean that he\she should be a supp\heal build.

Well I guess a berserker double endure pain zerk stance warrior is a bunker then. Staff thief too?

I hate condition builds as much as the next guy but you guys are just being silly. Paladin scrapper has more defensive stats than the mesmer, warrior, or necro builds.

Agreed.

I can understand players not liking condi. But calling them bunkers now is inaccurate due to the amulets available – especially when looking at Carrion or Viper.

Only Rabid could be considered bunker, and then they melt anyway to incoming condis due to low health pool.

For example I am way more “bunker” playing Demolisher power mesmer than playing Viper condi/hybrid mesmer…

I agree. All the other phantasm skills should be brought in line with shield 4.

Yes, spvp will help because when you die you won’t spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to find another fight to practice with.

Only if you find some good duelists in wvw then that is better to practice, because you don’t have to worry about limited time and pvp conquest mode.

wvw:
- More camera panning
- More running (towards and away from fights)
- More time spent doing nothing and wasting food/util buffs (I just had to say it)
- on the upside you can focus and enjoy fighting for what it is, and not have to worry about points/score.

Combat can be very “extended” over long distances and varying terrain, which is very different from spvp – fighting while using freelook and judging the environment to outflank (or escape from being flanked) is a very different skillset from spvp (although it partially translates over in terms of judging which point/direction to go for based on enemy positions on the minimap).

spvp:
- instant action.
- less need for freelook, particularly when fighting on a point.
- builds are not representative of what you might run into in wvw (for example ridiculous point bunkers)

Yeah, nice idea to merge the glamour and manipulation traits.

On another note, blinding befuddlement needs to have that ICD removed.

Dahkeus.8243:

Hmm…I’d be skeptical of seeing any AoE spells on phantasms, even though melee cleave on phantasm works. I think that if you ever had any phantasm that dropped a red circle on the ground, it would start to get really crowded/messy once you have a mesmer that can have 3 of these up at once dropping AoEs in addition to any red circles they drop themselves. It’d just get really messy for people playing against a mesmer like this.

However, if they gave phantasms a burst AoE similar to Mind Spike, which doesn’t cast a red circle, it may still work for ranged AoE without crowding the ground in red circles.

It doesn’t have to be a persistent AoE – could simply be a one time AoE attack, or perhaps persist for a very short duration (couple of seconds).

Of course the radius should be suitably small and perhaps the attack could be fired off as a ground targeted projectile.

Just like we can with the utility slots, I think this is important to have for the 1-5 skills.

Why? Because for a fixed keybinding, some skills are comfortable on certain keys, and other skills (be it from weapon swap, attunements, kits, etc.) in the same position just do not feel right to use.

So often a compromise has to be made, for situations where you want to use one particular weapon’s #2 and another weapon’s #3 on the same button.

EDIT: See image below for example.

This would only be possible after the skill has been unlocked in te usual fashion – so you could not swap #5 with #4 if you have not unlocked #4.

Yeah, it’s the mainhand issue again. :/

I personally wouldn’t use both at the same time, but if I did I’d pair scepter with focus and sword with shield.
Scepter with focus because it’s the “running” set – curtain for swiftness and pulls, and ranged weapon.
Sword with shield because you should be able to do some nice ileap tricks with tides of time, and it would be the defensive/melee set.

But this just highlights how desperately we need the choice of a third mainhand…

Rexx.1805:

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Honestly, that mind wrack trait needs to be GM at its current state, as it gives 50% damage increase to anyone that isn’t using a skill. So if you take confounding suggestions, you can mirror blade, blink, diversion or mantra, mind wrack and your target will probably have died. If my mind wracks do about 2.5k to the average person without mind wrack trait, with fragility and that trait, they will now do 4.1k (not including extra vuln from dazes and mirror blade), and combined with a 3 bounce mirror blade, that target is going to explode.

Agreed! My jaw dropped when i read that Trait, it’s really powerfull.

But I would change the discription to something like this:

Mental Torment – Mind Wrack does more damage. If your foe is innactive, drop a nuclear bomb on them instead.

LOL!

Yeah, and with confounding suggestions… :o scary as kitten.

Thief might be boring/pigeonholed/lack of variety/uniqueness, but it’s not weak.

Jace al Thor.6745:

Pepsi.8907:

So glad I have blade and soul to satisfy my pvp urges
See you when anet gets their fingers out of their kitten

I’m right there with you. Pyro will probably be along shortly after seeing the changes

I really need to try Blade and Soul.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Not better versions, rangers pet will still have more hp and defense :P

Thanks Are you more into the shatter method?

Yes, when it comes to illusions I prefer shattering them – because I like the visual effect with them arching back and clenching their fists – I like the artistic design of shattering, elegant and beautiful.

You might want to take some time to read through all the changes in the game release notes thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-23-2015/first#post5217689

There’s a lot to take in.

To be honest, torment is just as much “thematically” a mesmer condition as confusion is.

I think mesmers strength should be in the combined application of both these conditions (control enemy movement and skill usage) – together with interrupts and other control methods, though we certainly could do with more control utility skills among other things.

Edit: I accept glamour confusion is never coming back in the same way, so instead, just tightening up a few skills and traits here and there – for example cast time on confusing images (and maybe increase confusion duration), cry of frustration confusion duration, blinding befuddlemeent of course, and so on – just to level up both our torment and confusion application.

Depends on the player and the build, and what class/build you’re playing.

I can’t flat out say one thing is harder to fight against, 1v1 than another.

Some eles are devastating, some thieves are easy, some rangers are tough, some guardians weak.

Also note that due to the nature of the game mode, you don’t have unlimited amount of time to fight 1v1 (unlike in other scenarios – ie wvw). Most of the time, time and cap pressure, as well as danger of it turning into a 1v2 forces you to make “bad” choices, which you wouldn’t make in a straight out duel.

More elite spec details would be nice.

Lettuce.2945:

I like how whenever someone suggests a nerf to blinding dissipation, most people ignore it and dance around it. Guess we can tell the real and honest mesmers from the fake ones who want to defend their class. Because top 3 things right now that need to be nerfed is easily blinding dissipation, PU, and mind wrack dmg.

Oh I agree with it and personally don’t like using blinding dissipation.

You might ask why I don’t use it – the answer is pretty silly… I hate the sound effect! :S

Josh Davis.6015:

Wanted to clear something up:

Power Block had its damage unintentionally increased with the 6/23 release. The reduction wasn’t a “nerf” – it was a bug fix. It still does the same damage it did before the 6/23 release.

As for Maimed, we wanted to address it before the build went out but we ran out of time. I agree that it would have been better to have adjusted it before you guys got your hands on the new build, but there just wasn’t time. Sorry about this.

For staff cd trait – conditional recharge is something new we’re trying out. The high cd reduction uptime that we were seeing right out of the gate wasn’t something we felt comfortable with. If it feels really weak after this we’ll come back to it and look at it again.

Anyways, as Peters said, we’re keeping a really close eye on everything right now and things will definitely continue to shift as we discover and evaluate how things take shape across the game.

Hope that addresses a few of your questions.

Night!

Thank you for taking the time to reply and braving the forums.

Regarding MtD – as with pretty much all of us here the change to 1 stack has killed condition shatter.

The whole idea of condition shatter was to apply burst condition damage, but now all we can do is mediocre sustained damage which is easily mitigated by any class/build with average sustain and condition cleanse.

MtD condition shatter was much stronger before this patch, without IP. Please reconsider this hasty and uncalled for nerf which has pretty much destroyed the whole idea of condition shatter as a viable playstyle.

I wouldn’t want more ground targeting (already awkward enough to find suitable keybinds for jaunt, blink and things like chaos storm/temporal curtain).

But I’m all in favour of a mechanic that allows some ability for tactics and mind games with the mirrors.

suffish.4150:

Things that I am proud of on my account:
- Two legendaries (Bolt and Flameseeker prophecies) which I crafted and farmed for myself.
- Almost 20,000 AP in just over 2 years
- My Dungeoneer and blazing light titles
- My luminescent armour
- Over 3,000 gold on my account that I will never be able to bring myself to spend much of

Can I have some please. :p

Exedore.6320:

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

I know this has been quoted a lot in this thread, but kitten , you’re right on the money – I wouldn’t be surprised to see this exact list tomorrow.

I don’t mind the salads.

Player characters are annoying (the voices…), but I like some salad npcs, ie Sieran…

I find it irritating that even though it should be blatantly obvious after this patch whether a Mesmer is using PU or not (huge difference in stealth durations), enemies playing other classes still complain about “PU cheese” or “I hate PU” when I’m not even using the kittening kitten trait. >:(

It seems as soon as you pick up a torch and decoy – bam, you’re a “PU Mesmer”, regardless of trait choice… so insulting.

Meh, even since HoT I’ve always preferred torch for both power and condi despite being inferior to Shield so the extra burn is welcome.

However you’ve still got to land prestige and the iMage is still as pathetic as ever. . . so it’s a very minor buff.

And the other indirect “buff” being nerfs to other classes? Well HoT elite specs are all still overpowered, meta condi mesmer can’t reliably boon strip (Disenchantet is easily cleaved and absolutely cannot compare with Shattered Concentration which is one of the best boon removal traits), can still be countered by other classes, still has to use glassy amulets (Viper, Carrion because both rabid and wanderer suck in terms of damage output…) and then is arguably more glass than power builds using Demolisher. I play condi mes with viper and can easily lose a huge fraction of health from say a single DH longbow auto attack… ie all defence is active defence just like power shatter.

So I hardly think there’s much buff there at all.

Furajir.3815:

Warriors, Guards and Thieves have NEVER been meta. Ever. Never ever. Less than 0 times. It’s about time Anet realizes that some classes have been on top for far too long. Speaks volumes.

Eh? Seriously?

lol, good joke.

Ranged mainhand shield with suitable cc skill would be awesome.

Dondagora.9645:

But core mesmer is a shatter spec, we don’t want more shatter!

We want our clones to matter beyond shatter fodder. We like the idea of a clone-based spec. We just really, really, really don’t want it to be this kitten thing called Mirage we’ve been handed.

I agree.

More shatter is kind of boring – not really giving us a different way to play the class. Rather than Mirage being just another type of shatter spec, I’d rather see them go all the way in making it an illusion manipulation spec.

I’d have loved to see them replace shatter skills on Mirage for ranger style pet command mechanics and beefed up clone/phantasm survival and mind game mechanics. Make it an active version of old phantasm style play – but where you have to initiate commands for illusions to attack. F1 could have been ambush – as in a targeted burst from all your illusions, which could still proc shatter traits on hit.

Fluffball.8307:

Sieran > Tybalt

I like you.

Should really be 9v9 now due to addition of rev (assuming idea of enough slots for one per class). But yeah, would be fun.

I don’t miss harmonious mantras.

I’d just like the ridiculous 50% contextual healing of Mantra of Recovery reverted to a flat amount.

kitten now I’m craving pancakes! >:(

I’m considering situations such as – Blink, dodge (in combat), F3.

That’s a 1 illusion plus yourself shatter which won’t produce a clone to follow up with – dodge, F1 (or F2 if condition). It will again only be a one illusion plus yourself shatter rather that a two illusion plus yourself shatter (which incidentally would proc IR).

It seems this change to two separate illusions would mean prioritising the initial setup, after which you can still chain shatter everything else with a single dodge (because you’d already have one clone out) or other single illusion generation skill.

The only thing that limits is twitch plays, like the above F3 example. Or for example in condition to do say a one illusion (plus yourself) F1 followed by a 2 illusion (plus yourself) F2 because the followup shatter would only have a single dodge clone.

I don’t mind having to methodically setup all the time (with Chronophantasma it should solve that issue but then it has become a mandatory trait to use in conjunction with IR), but it would be a shame to limit interesting plays.

Hence my idea of a stacking effect (see post on first page) that puts a limitation on the chain but allows two consecutive shatters proccing IR back to back – and this effect should persist through Continuum Shift preventing mindlessly spamming all shatters in a row with a free clone.

Edit: I changed a few things for clarity:

“I have an idea for IR – how about applying some kind of stacking effect like Fencer’s Finesse does.

So for example, you shatter with no illusions -> a clone is returned and you receive an effect, call it “Time Lag” (I can’t think up a more catchy word).

This effect lasts for 5 seconds (can be adjusted upwards to balance – maybe 7 seconds would work best) and can only be at a maximum of 2 stacks. Therefore say you hit F1 (no illusions, self shatter) – one clone is spawned and you get 5 seconds of time lag. You then follow up with F2 – both you and the clone shatter and then you end up with 2 stacks of Time Lag with a few seconds remaining on the first.

Now if you followed up immediately with F3, Illusionary Reversion would not proc because you are at max stacks of Time Lag, one of which must expire before shattering will return a clone again.

The overall idea here is to still give the possibility of chain/sequential shatters up to 2 times and then have a sort of “ICD” which limits the chain unless you manually spawn additional illusions.

The visual icon on the bar will provide a cue for yourself and enemies to know when IR will proc so you can easily keep track of it.

This effect should persist through Continuum Shift preventing mindless shatter spam.

Is this too messy/complicated?"

So far I also tried Firebrand (holy kitten the burning – I thought this was a support spec?), Holosmith (ludicrous damage output), and Weaver (meh actually not really my cup of tea).

Firebrand’s axe is actually pretty cool – I like the pull and the visual effects on the whole thing.

Complaints about blurred frenzy in the pvp forums are really getting my goat. Edit: kitten me, there are some clueless players in there.

Of all the things to complain about, it seems some people just won’t be satisfied until we’re freekills.

Interested to see what the new Sword will be.

I don’t like Bolt at all, so I hope the new one is completely different to that.

Any game mode. No armour runes, no skills (temporal curtain, SoI), sigil (speed) or anything else.

Just interested to see how many here manage without, and how they make up for it.

Carpboy.7145:

Hammer. With a phantasm that does earthshaker every 10ish seconds

I so want a 2h hammer.

Playing cards also sound amazing, but thinking perhaps could simply be a skin for MH and OH focus?

ColinJohanson.2394:

A quick update on this one -> After feedback from presenting the original hero point count – we decided getting to level 80 will give you enough hero points to unlock all the core skills and traits entirely. Doing hero challenges (aka skill challenges) will simply allow you to earn all the skills/traits earlier before level 80. With the release of HoT, there will be options to spend the excess hero points earned from doing hero challenges in the world.

There are a number of other changes on 6/23 to make the experience from 1-80 more exciting, better-paced, rewarding, and fun as well after having the time to evaluate and player feedback from the updates last year.

-CJ

Wow, good job! :o

Yeah, I was surprised this got fixed.

I find zenith torch and scepter skins look reasonably similar at a distance – going Sc/Sw + Sw/T with the same sword skin in each makes it a bit confusing to see which set you’re using at any time. I find it confusing anyway.

Oh hell yes, channelled block on shield is amazing!

And looking forward to tides of time wall fix.

Amazing changes overall, very excited to play next BWE (assuming first weekend of October?)

@DuckDuckBOOM – I like that analysis. Will be trying out duelling again and take a condi cleanse utility instead.