Guild Wars 2

Now unless you want to sink 20 points in dom for torch cooldown, or 25 in illusions, iMage is going to be on a kittenly long cooldown.

30s is way too long, it needs to be reduced to around 20s base.

I’d like to see axe be a solid hybrid weapon with the ability to generate might (like ranger’s axe) and some mobility (a leap or a port). That would allow the option of speccing whatever you like – power, condi or hybrid.

Otherwise I don’t want the weapon to be pigeonholed down one gear type.

But Mirage sounds awesome and exactly the kind of elite spec I was hoping for (especially thematic given desert pve zones) and I’m hoping it comes with the potential for more mind games, control and trickery – I’d gladly lose burst damage in order to play this way.

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

The thing is I strongly believe you should not be able to take Blade Training AND Evasive Mirror together – it should be one or the other, either lower cooldown on BF, ileap, iRiposte and Swordsman, or have a reflect available on your BF (as well as dodging). That is why they should stay in the same tree.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Evasive Mirror looks promising but the devs stated they are still working on cooldowns and the duration of the effect. Things might change but let’s assume it stays at it is.

What would Sword gain over non-Sword users? Reflect on BF every 10s. It it cool? Yes, it’s pretty awesome. Does it increase the offensive power of Sword? Yes, it does, since I can reflect projectiles. Does it increase the survivablity of Sword? No, it doesn’t since projectiles are already evaded anyway. It might actually be bad because the reflected projectiles can trigger Retaliation.

Ok this I can accept – I may be overestimating the synergy. My reasoning is I do not want there to be an “obvious path” through any traitline as soon as you choose a particular weapon, but each path should be equally valid.

Xaylin.1860:

I simply disagree with your assessment of how powerful the synergy could be. Maybe even more importantly it doesn’t make the other traits unappealing. If Blade Training was on the Adept level, Duelists Discpline and Blinding Dissipation might be equally appealing as Evasive Mirror depending on your overall build.

Likewise I don’t consider Duelists Discipline to be as strong as you believe – it should be a solid trait but evasive mirror and blinding dissipation should be much better (providing no annoying ICDs).

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

Don’t forget offhand sword when it comes to synergy – having phantasmal fury on that can make a difference, so Blade Training is a solid trait affecting 5 skills, unlike the pistol trait.

I didn’t. But not everyone runs Sw/Sw. That’s also somewhat like saying that 2-handed weapon traits should generall be weaker than others. Additionally, so far the secondary bonus on Blade Training doesn’t contribute a significant benefit to most of the skills since they are single hit abilities.

But the precision does contribute to overall crit chance when running any kind of shatter build speccing into duelling (power or condition), or even to any other weapon skills paired with either sword main or off hand (for example confusing images with sword offhand).

Xaylin.1860:

Curunen.8729:

1) Keep the precision bonus on sword but change the trait to grant reduced cooldown for every attack you evade or block (either from dodging or BF or iRiposte), and
2) Delete Desperate Decoy and replace it with a skill that inflicts bleeding when you interrupt a foe or something (specifically for any player not using a pistol).

The bolt part could be OP as hell. Perma-BF says ‘Heeeey!’.

Talking tiny percentages – given two dodges and BF and an average number of evades per fight. The block effect could be set to trigger only on iRiposte and not on any random aegis or anything else.

The time it would become powerful is in 1vX where you evade half a dozen attacks in one dodge or BF – but the solution here would be to cap the max recharge reduction.

To be honest I can think of one solution but I don’t think many people will like it:
- Move Phantasmal Fury to the master minor slot and swap it with Sharper Images which would become an adept major – reason being I don’t think any traitline should lean towards a particular method of dealing damage and at the moment I think it’s not right that both confusing combatants and sharper images are both minor traits – given confusion should be one of our trademark conditions, I believe it should remain as the grandmaster minor trait – but instead, Sharper Images should be a choice and not automatically gained.

I find it silly that power builds speccing into duelling automatically get illusions bleeding and confusing on crit, as well as confusing themselves on crit, all for free – doesn’t make sense to me.

Excellent post – provides a continuous vertical/horizontal gear path without any dead ends.

In any case I’m drooling of speccing Axe/Focus.

Perhaps they gave us axe because they couldn’t give us MH Focus – seeing how the iWarden has axes.

messiah.1908:

musu.9205:

the original leak source also claimed that mirage will get blur to replace dodge , i dont know how it will work . but hopeful nothing like tthat thief boring 3 dodges . thats surely lazy and add little to gameplay .also we dont need another support role

so instead of dodge we evade through blur. wth? same thing different name

we need blur to be unique not just evade.

like reflect all dmg not just projectiles
give retaliation
blind maybe
smoke field

etccc…

I imagine we will be able to trait it to give unique effects.

Windwalker.7421:

Improved Blade Training:
- Recharge Reduced: 20%
- Precision: +50
- Increased range on #3 skill to 900
- Increased Sword damage by 10% (Mesmer only!)

I like this.

In addition, increase the iSwordsman’s leap range so both mainhand and offhand sword gain some benefit.

Perhaps playing into the boon theme, all sword skills have a chance of removing a boon on hit – say 20-30% chance? Maybe with a few seconds ICD or reduce the chance to balance it? I like the idea of all the skills including the iswordsman having the potential to rip boons when traited, providing it is carefully balanced.

Exactly – condition builds on other classes are insane.

Even at 2 stacks, MtD struggled against some ele builds among other things and I didn’t find it “overpowered”.

I’d sooner delete PU from the game (yes I’m biased) if it meant getting 2 torment stacks on MtD back.

Summon phantasms, wait for cooldowns to reset, shatter them for damage (or auxilliary effect) and resummon.

There’s no good reason to let illusions die anymore without shattering them unless they are killed by an enemy.

I personally don’t believe in these being exclusive playstyles anymore – rather shatter skills and phantasms should both be made use of in any build for whatever purpose they have been traited/geared for.

Advent.6193:

Phantasmal Nerf.
“Honest, bro – I’m just a … bugfix. Yeah, that’s it.”

I’ve just had a great idea for iMage!

The bouncing attack causes an RNG debuff on enemy players hit – while under this debuff any skills used have a random chance of failing to function.

:p

No thanks, I’m glad they’re gone.

I’d rather have MtD reverted or F2 buffed.

Hmm, something is wrong I think.

It has failed too many times even when the clone is alive – and yes after dodging.

Can anyone else confirm, or are we missing something? Seems like a bug.

Edit: weird, it works on the target golems after dodging, but has failed a number of times in combat.

Here’s a thought – make all NPC summon runes/sigils pve only.

Only npcs/ai remaining in pvp are profession based summons (pets/clones/minions/etc).

I seriously hope they reconsider before tomorrow. I was pretty excited for the patch but this single change puts a downer on the whole thing.

Please give us a chance to play with it and actually determine if it is truly overpowers vs actual human opponents who use their damage mitigation sources… not kittening target golems…

On the plus side it means you can get the iAvenger out faster.

Going to have to jump on the bandwagon with Minstrel and Kraitkin as well.

Personally would take Bifrost – but then I think Rodgort is ugly (Zenith Flame > Rodgort) and Eternity way too flashy.

However if Rodgort suits your dark theme better, then by all means go for it!

Agreed, Traited Mirror/Blink and Bountiful Disillusionment are the two primary reasons I take Chaos.

But as Ross said, it’s fitting Chaos in your build, because it’s still hard to give up DE in any build.

MailMail.6534:

And just for the record, I don’t see anything majorly bad about the Power Block nerf. I also didn’t see anything too bad with the Staff nerf except you over-nerfed it when 3% would have been more balanced (basic math proves this). The biggest issue is the maim nerf, because it simply reinforces the trend that has happened with Mesmers since the game came out.

Rinse wash repeat with the devs:

• Quick to “fix bugs” that lessen Mesmer effectiveness.
• Quick to fix bugs on other classes that boost their effectiveness.
• Slow to fix our bugs.
• Quick to nerf our traits/skills.
• Slow to nerf traits/skills of other classes. See Healing Signet & Turrets.

Agreed.

Power Block – ok, understandable.
Staff trait – should be 3%.
Confounding Suggestions – I expect this will be next to balance
PU – it’s too much and encourages sloppy play.

MtD… absolutely ridiculous. It should be 2 stacks.

Anyone run Sweet Bean Buns here in any build (wvw), or is the price out of reach? Probably a good thing because I think it’s a stupidly powerful food and shouldn’t exist in the first place.

But that doesn’t stop daydreaming… If I had the gold, I’d run this monster:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAreGl0nhy0gjagbNWcOqzAYASs6CdRbU0GbfSAA-TFSHABupPoDNM2+kC8d/BGV/5OlgHp8DgTpQAAEgZWml5MDM0hO0hO0h23l5Qn5QHapA6bOA-w

Could take Energy sigils instead of Malice I suppose.

Ah it’s annoying having consumables like this in the game that are almost verging on p2w with ingame currency, or at least pricing many players completely out of it. So tempting but unreachable… :/

No I’m quite happy at the moment.

The only thing annoying me is the amount of player hatred there is targeted at mesmers. Sure it’s always been the case, but it’s reaching a new high (or low depending on which side you are).

It’s almost making me want to switch to a different class as main because I’m honestly fed up with qq/hatred directed at this class.

Phase retreat? Mirror blade? Wow, that would be crazily overpowered.

I think it is fine as it is.

Ok decoy cooldown is a pain for non-shatter builds, and I would like to see an underwater version of veil.
But our stealth is not like thief stealth – the illusions add an extra element of confusion, so any further stealth skills need to be 1. on high cooldown and 2. on a limited number of weapons.

Maybe when we get alternative #1 to #5 skills in a future update/expansion, we could have some more to choose from.

Maybe if you had to make a compromise between the maximum number of illusions, and stealth/other mechanics so we could specialise, then I would support more options.

Caelus.7139:

Curunen.8729:

Caelus.7139:

Curunen.8729:

Woah, mantras recharge in the background now?!? :o

What a beautiful buff!

Wait, is this true? O_o

Yes.

So, if I’m not mistaken, I can cast MoD, and even if I don’t use the casts the mantra goes on cooldown? o_o

Yes – you can hold on to them for longer than their cooldown time and you’re able to immediately recharge after burning the charges.

Arikyali.5804:

I think I used it a few times in duels, to copy 25 stacks of might from someone, and that was it. I thought it was great for boon copying when it first came out, but I…don’t recall ever using it since.

I miss the old mimic too…that was fun. Maybe the devs thought it was a little too OP…

They just didn’t want to leave the possibility of pew pew hardcounter builds due to making the ranger LB change at the same time, and being uncreative just looked at arcane thievery and though “let’s just make it copy boons only instead of stealing them”…

Words cannot describe my disgust for the mimic change – would have been better if they simply deleted the skill from the utility bar.

Eh?

Zerker is king right now, condition is second rate.

Playing as a human makes me feel uneasy.

Seriously – if I try to create a custom male human character I don’t really gel with it and I hate trying to make a character that looks like myself irl. If I try to create a female human character in some games I find that I can make a character that’s more relatable than a male character oddly enough. For example in Mass Effect I played default male Sheploo but custom FemShep. Also it’s sometimes down to the voice acting – eg if I prefer male or female voice for the character (in MEAndromeda I prefered Sara’s voice actor over Scott’s, although going against the grain I actually preferred Mark Meer’s voice for Shepard).

However in any game that allows it I will always make a beast race or alien, never a human unless its the only option.

I like asura because they remind me of rabbits with the long ears, and I like rabbits.

I play a female asura simply because its not my first character – my first character was a male asura thief which I was able to project my character on and relate to much more than any other race in gw2 – the quirkiness, the science/metaphysics, the attitude and so on. However I got bored of thief very quickly (like a week after launch) so made a female asura mesmer, just for a difference – and I’ve stuck with it ever since.

Actually the female asura’s voice has to be my favourite PCs voice out of all of them that I’ve heard. Only Taimi’s is better.

Personally I’m not going to feel guilty for a PU playstyle – shifted to that and had been playing since before the ridiculous additional boon refresh every second buff in the summer (needs to be reverted IMO), heavily inspired/influenced by Seven’s videos/playstyle, despite that being wvw and this being pvp.
I play it because I love the playstyle of dropping into stealth and opening with mini-bursts – it just feels right for me and my personality.

I’m looking forward to a minor nerf to PU, to spread out build variety and shift the focus away from this. Would be interesting if summoning caused you to decloak there and then, and certainly the rate and duration of protection at the moment is too much.

Current hotjoin pvp build is this: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRAsf7clwzipHUzoGb9IipHEXwBckUoavWJF82FC-T4Ag0CnIqRVjrGTNyas1M+Y9x2ijITLeiA
But I’ve only started playing again recently, so still trying to get my head into combat and definitely needs some tweaks – once I feel my fingers are doing the right things.

Artaz.3819:

You all are forgetting Mind Spike removes boons. I agree it is not ideal in most circumstances to use a sword auto with a Mesmer but that just means that the sword auto needs to be improved (given some range) or boon strip moved to Blurred Frenzy or some such.

Oh I’m sure we’re all aware of Mind Spike on sword AA, however in practice it is very difficult to get much use out of it. Sure you can pop the odd boon, but it’s not on demand (unless you prepare the auto chain on an object or something) and being in melee range for extended time to execute a melee attack chain is not usually good for our health.

Mind stab on the other hand can be executed very fast, at range and in aoe on multiple enemies, although the single boon removal is a poor reward in the current state of the game.

Kury.8210:

This has been an odd question to me for a while now. I play a PU mesmer which seems to turn most ideas about the class on its head. It’s not squishy (providing I’m not asleep) and it seems really easy to play. Perhaps since I’ve been only pvping with this class for so long I’m just hesitant about branching out. Honestly, it seems so easy I have a hard time telling if I’m actually decent or if it’s just the build.

Pretty much every fight is just enter with staff clones and pretend to be a clone until I’m either found out or ready to summon another set, then shatter and start playing hard to get. Things get hairy, I can almost always stealth and leave them in a pile of clones looking for the real thing. It all feels really simple, especially compared to say… a very well played thief. Am I missing something that makes it tough?

Also, someone mentioned PU mesmer not doing well without a good team. Someone mind elaborating? Trying to learn all I can.

What is your exact build and weapon set. Please don’t take this in the wrong way, but by pvp do you mean hotjoin? Because anything works in hotjoin – I like to run a troll reflect/condirupt build because it’s funny to watch opponents try and catch you. Surviving is one thing – that’s the whole point of PU – actually doing something useful compared to being AFK like most PU players is another thing altogether.

The bolded part simply does not work against good opponents – you will be retargeted within seconds of reappearing from stealth, focused and bursted.

Stealth in pvp prevents point capture – and also puts additional pressure on your teammates. Taking 6 in chaos currently – and you also seem to be taking staff I’m guessing your damage pressure is not good – ie anyone who wants to run away from you can run away, and you lack the ability to quickly burst targets.

The only way PU can be successful in pvp is if you are consistently holding 1v2+ on a point, forcing a numbers advantage for the rest of your team. Otherwise you are not helping win the conquest best. This is why people who use stealth (ie torch/decoy/MI) tend to use power shatter in order to contribute high damage burst and boon strip.

PU builds are great for survival, but weak at doing anything meaningful in pvp – aside from the 1v2+ situation – but if enemies choose to ignore you/out rotate you then that also fails.

I think 180s on time warp is still far too long for what it does.

120s would be acceptable and I might be tempted to use it.

Small team hotjoin is pretty fun (<5 people per side), I don’t want to see that removed.

As a solo player, I like to be able to hop into a match in less than a few minutes and leave when I feel I’ve played enough – hotjoin offers me this option.

I do agree though that 8v8 hotjoin can be pretty silly at times.

Personally I’ve reached a point where I’m fed up with the pathetic lack of gear customisation in pvp. It’s too restrictive and doesn’t allow any creativity.

Loxsus.3841:

Necrotize.2974:

5 mesmer team must be so godmode that not even the servers can handle it and that’s why we never see one.

Duh I just realized, they’re actually already WINNING. They’re just all in perma stealth so you don’t NOTICE they’re winning every game.

Even the scores are in stealth! :o

Solori.6025:

Reading these changes I cant for the life of me remember why I was possesed to make another necro instead of a mesmer -_-

Please delete that flea ridden character to make room for another glorious butterfly.

:)

I take it you’ve seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tcjVz12Ago

Probably the best most recent guide.

redcomyn.4651:

I am just wondering when they will take all the buffs back.

This is worrying me as well.

With the amount of misguided complaining that is likely to be generated on the forum (particularly the pvp forum), this might be a setup for a horrific nerf before the next pvp season…

I sincerely hope not, but I have doubts.

At least be specific about these defenses as in order to be “overloaded” one must build exactly for it – which is why meta pvp builds have gravitated towards Inspiration/Illusions/Chrono with x/Shield plus another weapon.

Now take the situation of building away from that and facing off against any other HoT elite spec – it most likely won’t go well either due to not enough illusion sustain/replenishment, not enough condi clear or not enough cooldown reduction (among other things).

For example don’t take shield (ie take another offhand or two hander). Now suddenly there’s a big hole where that block was. Now don’t take RI (Inspiration) – anti condi and sustain in general drastically diminishes. Don’t take MoF – F3 loses most of its potency outside of a 1v1 duel. Don’t take minhand sword – there goes your evade. Don’t take Blink – well good luck because you’re likely kittened…

So not only are you pressured into taking everything necessary, even when you do it is simply enough to be on par with all the other faceroll HoT builds out there.

If you are suggesting the entire game needs overhauling in terms of defence, offence and passive mechanics then I agree. However this thread appears to single out mesmer as uniquely broken when that isn’t true.

I can see so many holes in that “rotation” where one interrupt or cc or even flat burst damage would break it apart. And stealth in melee range won’t prevent good players from still inflicting damage either via aoe, channeled skills or prediction.
And this is nothing in comparison to evade frames on a staff acro/DD evade spamming build – which also ends up doing more damage in melee range through bound and vault spam than this mesmer build.

The only point I can agree with you on is yes in general GW2 does not require much skill to play.

Torch without PU is kind of pathetic. It’s only really good for the extra condition cleanse. And with PU it encourages camping in stealth to minimise cooldowns which I don’t like.

And staff forces you to literally “jump through hoops” just to barely get a “normal” cooldown reduction.

At least with pistol you can get it with any interrupt – which if taking MoD and other suitable weapons (iwave, chaos storm, temporal curtain, F3, etc…) is not difficult and it gives a good payoff.

kitten .

I knew they would nerf MtD – especially having moved it down to master tier and looking at the corresponding masters (one stack of might on shatter and phantasm attack cooldown…).

Well that sucks – I’d rather have the 6 stacks without IP than 4 stacks with IP for a 3 clone shatter – especially given now you have to be in close range to get that 4th stack.

So basically MtD is not a core focus of any build but a supplementary source of damage and we’ll have to consider other build options…

Exciton.8942:

Did they also make decoy a manipulation skill?
This could definitely be a problem

Yeah I found it weird that Desperate Decoy is affected by manipulations cooldown – surely they meant by Illusionist’s Celerity?

And yeah it would be silly if the reflect on MI revealed you so I hope they have made sure that doesn’t happen.

I’d rather see Cry of Frustration be given 1 stack of torment per illusion for 6 seconds base.

And leave MtD at one stack.

This provides one Condi “burst” shatter button in F2 without making every other shatter button into simple faceroll for huge condition stacks.

In addition to this, the Confusing Combatants trait can be restored instead of the Fury trait – which will not benefit people running Dire or anything ridiculously tanky with low precision in wvw as it requires crits to proc confusion. It will also benefit non native condition weapons allowing greater variety and flexibility in builds.

I believe those two changes would be a good start to making Condi shatter competitive while maintaining some constraints on gameplay.

It seems the “condi” hate chat has escalated this weekend.

If I play a power chrono or mesmer – minimal hate.

If I play any condi build – instant “condi noob” or whatever.

I seriously don’t get it. In any case my block list continues to increase.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Hello.

If ArenaNet added a new race, say the tengu, would you be dissapointed if the female model and the made model looked exactly the same, had exactly same animations and only wear male armour, just like charr and asura?

I’m asking this because I’m surprised that people don’t seem to mind that charr and asura share the same model for both genders.

I’m surprised that people do mind – I think it’s fantastic that charr and asura share armour and have similar male/female models, instead of the usual fantasy nonsense.

I hope the tengu follow in a similar fashion.

Belzebu.3912:

I actually HOPE that Tengus share the same models for both genders, besides small characteristics just like Charr.

Agreed. 100%

Fixing forum bug.

Windwalker.7421:

Elfiest.4031:

I don’t think the changes in Illusionary reversion were really effective since you can always combine it with DE to generate clones fast. In pvp chronomancers still have insane burst at the moment.

I don’t see the point here. If you’re taking both DE and Chrono, then you should have very strong Clone generation. Anything less would mean DE remains a must have. In the scenario you give, DE+IR+CP is totally overkill. The “insane” burst you allege, is solely due to Mind Wrack for Power Shatter Mesmers, which will be on a 15s timer in the build you describe. (minus Alacrity) Only through F5 will you ever need 3 more Illusions for a near instant follow-up MW, which of course is the whole design of Chronomancy. (And has plenty of counter-play, as this combo is among the most Telegraphed combos in the game! See a Rift appear? React! Dodge/block/invuln/evade)

Besides, the second 3-Illusion MW is easily achievable in other ways, and doesn’t have anything to do with IR. (No matter how you nerf it, it’s easy to get 2x 3-Clone MW off in short order using the F5 Shatter. You can use MI to make it trivial even, but CP+DE alone are also enough even without IR.)

Elfiest.4031:

I agree with what some people said above, giving this trait an internal cooldown or making it compete with chronophantasm in the grandmaster tier would be better options.

You can’t nerf IR enough to avoid this “insane” burst aspect of the F5 shatter and the Chronomancy line as a whole, so why completely nerf IR into uselessness? Sorry, moving it to GM would be a terrible idea! It can’t hope to compete with Chronophantasm and would clearly be redundant!

A CD is also a bad idea in general, unless you make it 3s or less, and even then it’s clunky and less reliable than the current IR. Most of all, such a nerf would be targeted at nothing! It would amount to a random nerf to a decent & competitive trait, possibly leaving it un(der) used. It wouldn’t change a thing as far as Power bursting goes, and Condie bursting is an absolute non-issue anyway.

I played a Condie Shatter all BWE and we’re still significantly weaker at Condition damage output then Burn-based Eles, Guardians, and Engineers. It’s still viable and fun, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen a Confusion or Torment tick of over 2k on a player all BWE. Now compare that to any of the above professions, who constantly apply 2500+ Burn ticks on you! Even one tick hurts a lot and outside of a Cleanse/Resistance there is NO counter play option! Totally unlike Confusion and Torment, both of which have a very simple counter play option that halves their DPS! (It’s ludicrous to imagine why we keep seeing Condie Mesmer getting nerfed over and over again, while all these Burning lunatics are left untouched!)

Please, leave IR alone! The requirement of 2 Illusions is fine and together with Chronophantasms allows for a realistic alternative to DE. The fact that you can still choose to take both DE and IR+CP is no different for any other resource-based class with multiple traits to boost that resource. There are significant trade-offs in doing that!

I hear you.

messiah.1908:

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

Yep, people’s ideas about condi mesmer damage is often grossly exaggerated.

The only thing condi mesmer’s have over other classes’ condi builds is the ability to engage/disengage and in combat mobility. Damage wise, other classes such as revenant, ele, guard, and so on do much more than mesmer when it comes to conditions.

Condi rev is particularly disgusting – I hate fighting them as a condi mesmer. It’s almost a hardcounter.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

messiah.1908:

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

But 2 torment on shatter is wayyy op.

Yeah, it’s silly. :/

I find it silly that we have to chain shatter spam just to get a decent amount of confusion/torment stacks on anything – I’d rather have more thoughtful/slower/timed burst but with increased condi application.

…

4 things to see and avoid:
iCounter – insanely easy to see and not proc
Confusing Images – obvious animation
Shatters – easy to avoid with a tiny bit of brainpower
iDuelist Unload – easy to avoid/LoS

Everything else is fluff – illusion auto attacks, ineptitude/BD confusion procs and so on. The damage is easily mitigated.

If you avoid iCounter you will never be hit with double figure stacks of torment. If you avoid confusing images, same for confusion.
If someone blows 3+ shatters in a row just to condi burst you, they’re ripe for the counter attack.

Most mesmers shatter predictably so can be anticipated and dodged/blocked/evaded if you know how they will play. I’ve been in many “stalemates” with mesmers in the past (on different builds – power and condi and different classes) because we could easily read each others shatters and avoid them.

Oh nevermind that:
Confusion – if ~5+ stacks, don’t spam skills. Cleanse or kite.
Torment – if <~3 stacks, ignore. If more, cleanse or be careful with unnecessary movement.

I wish you could counter insane burning/poison/bleed stacks in the same way.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Shocking aura instantly ends blurred frenzy. Retaliation is only ~240 per proc but ends up doing 2-6k damage to the Mesmer depending on how many ppl are cleaved. Other auras will also go through blurred frenzy.

Weakness reduces endurance regeneration and poison reduces healing.

There are a lot more unblockables out there than just a few guardian skills. Necro warhorn 4 and traited staff marks are huge here. All corruptions are unblockable. All walls/wards are unblockable. Traited deflecting shot is a 10 second unblockable knock back on guard. Basi venom makes any attack unblockable for the entire team. Check out the full list:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unblockable

Reveal is not necessary. Mesmer stealth isn’t tricky. Just cleave where they were and watch your auto attack rotation flip over to know you are hitting them. It’s so easy to kill stealthed targets. And then you show a rotation that has you camping wells while stealthed. If you didn’t the rotation wouldn’t work. Everyone knows where you are. Furthermore stealth and distortion prevent capping.

Channeling scepter 2 doesn’t mean nothing can hit you for 2 seconds. Just the next attack. Likewise, aegis is only 1 attack. Especially vs fast hit enemies or multiple enemies these defenses fall apart.

Sure your “rotation” may keep you alive in most 1v1s but this isn’t a 1v1 game. It’s a team game. If a team focuses you, you might be able to pop distortion to prevent 1 unblockable but if focused, that “rotation” won’t save you. I’m also fairly certain I could probably kill you on my DD or necro 1v1 if you just did that rotation but whatever.

Also no decent DH or warrior should die to that rotation. It’d be a stalemate at best for you.

Good post.

In the end you are left with one of the following:
- survive a 1v1 indefinitely but not able to kill the other player or prevent decap
- get focused by more than one enemy and die/be forced to run.

Either way it’s not contributing anything useful and I should point out that in a similar way bunker mesmer doesn’t work anymore.

I should also say that these (active) defences are the only defence for mesmer (no, iDefender is useless when you get focused and protection won’t save you anymore either). There is no shroud, insane healing, immunities, unlimited evades, unlimited blocks and so on. When you get hit (which you will because a good opponent will hit in the gaps of this rotation using methods that have already been pointed out), you will take a lot of damage.

Believe me I don’t want to have brainless defence – but singling out and this away from mesmer without smacking down every elite spec in both offence and defence at the same time will be bad.

StickerHappy.8052:

To be honest, I think confusion is still good even with the nerf, the main problem mesmers have is application, yes we have a lot of sources but they are being stacked 1 stack at a time.

EX: Scept 3 5 stacks for a channel < Engie prybar 5 stacks for a single hit
3 Stacks from Image < Engie 5 stacks concussion bomb
6 Stacks CoF shatter = Warrior 4 stacks on interrupt
(This still needs to be 3 clones)

Confusing Combatants is still situational if you kill your clones and all that for 25 pts in dueling, (I mean CMON!)

Confusing Enchantments (1 stack for entering and 1 for leaving) again- too situational, 1 get 1 stack, i won’t be bothering coming back and out again for more if I were the foe. (A master Trait too, CMON!)

If we had more reliable ways to apply it, (better than other classes, IT IS our staple condition anyway) i think we wont even need a damage buff again.

Yeah, both traits are mediocre considering their placement in the trees.

Confusing combatants either needs buffing or moving. Confusing enchantments either needs buffing or some sort of merge with dazzling glamours.

Remove portal and moa – watch all mesmers disappear instantly.

While I love the low cooldowns, I don’t like the block only blocking one attack and the phantasm being exclusively power based (single target, spike damage).