Guild Wars 2

Cynz.9437:

while we at it can we also remove invul, blocks, aegis etc.? just to make it fair..tnks

LOL everytime i see thief thread this guy has to show up to protect it.

Thief in spvp dont need perm steath to survive. i dont see why in wvw they cant do.
ofc unless they are not as skill as …

Darkstorn.5423:

So you are going to totally ignore the fact that the most annoying perma-stealth thieves are already running d/d and d/p so that wouldn’t change anything?

They can only jump in out of stealth because Heartseeker is on the same weapon set skills as Black Powder. If they want to stealth with this change they would have to drop Black Powder, weapon swap, Heartseeker then be on cooldown for 10s before they could do that combo again. It isn’t a huge change but it effectively eliminates perma-stealth since players could no longer sit in D/P for weapon stealth. They also couldn’t chain weapon switches because they would go on swap cooldown when they went back to D/P. The fastest a person could do this combo without taking weapon swap reductions is every 20s or so.

D/P currently is too flexible with a built in stealth, teleport, daze and backstab. Almost all the thieves I know that go D/P run sword or shorbow since both give a lot more utility. Why would someone pick up D/D when they are D/P aside from the slightly cheaper CnD which is more risky to pull off?

After a jaunt out with my thief last night it occurred to me that there is an easy fix (more of an adjustment) to the thief perma-stealth issue in WvW. That is to simply switch around two skills on the weapon bar. That would be to swap Heartseeker and Death Blossom.

This simple change would effectively eliminate the single biggest issue with thieves since D/P would no longer have direct access to Heartseeker. They could Heartseeker if they ran D/P and D/D but they would be stuck in D/D after going stealth for 10 seconds making it difficult to spam Blinding Powder/Heartseeker. For players seeking this style of play, it would also lock them into a more restrictive weapon set.

It would not eliminate this style of play but it would open up counter play more which is what many players really want (including many thieves).

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Over here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Merged-PVP-Deceptive-evasion-change/first#post3513573

err… sorry to interrupt, so basically ANY mesmer build that utilize Prismatic Understanding trait is a PU Mesmer ?

or must there be any specific trait setup ?

i run 0/20/30/0/20….. with PU, and i use staff /scepter+pistol…. so am i a PU mesmer ?

hihey.1075:

/respect.
You are one of the reasons I still believe in this class and in its users. Fighting against a glass cannon Shatter/Phantasm mesmer always provides me with unmatched adrenaline.

Keep it up

sry but this is not very constructive.
i use pu not to troll or anything i use it so i can survive better in a zerg. pu has been in the game for quiet some time now and only since a month or so it became popular. i have tried pretty much every build out there. i got 5 different armor sets and i played glamour/triforce/immortal mes/phantasm build/torment build/ blackwater/power pu/ shatter cat/ anti warrior build/lockdown and even a mantra build. when everyone in spvp played phantasm build, i played a glamhybrid. i dont follow the meta ever, but atm i use pu as i have to survive at all cost or ill rally everyone.
running with a zergbusting group is very intense and yes im a veilbot, but at least i survive.
when u get focused by backline gankers, then u need that extra toughness and extra stealth to get away. also the cc meta makes it very hard for our class.
so instead of judging everyone, u might wanna check the build our and see if it really is sooooo overpowered.
also then u dont respect our best mesmer players either then? pyro played pu, osicat plays power pu…just sayin’
so could u please stop assuming that everyone using this build wants an easy win. tell u what, its not. u might win a few 1v1’s but u still die a lot. i play in a very harsh environment atm. if u push 50 man zergs with 15-25 people u gotta spec for defense and pu is in the defensive traitline. so having no respect for mesmers using it, is quiet an ignorant statement, sry.

Entioch.6594:

^ This is the biggest thing for me, win, lose, doesn’t matter, I haven’t actually enjoyed a fight against a mesmer in a long time.

You’re not supposed to enjoy it. This is the entire point of my personal objection to these sorts of threads.

The mesmer is meant to be an illusionist/mage-trickster class. The mesmer, as the wiki puts it, “confounds, controls, or evokes emotion”. Clones are part of that. Shatter mechanisms are part of that. And yes, stealth is a part of that, which is why we have a half dozen ways of obtaining stealth.

Entioch.6594:

Clearly your intent on making sure PU is well regarded in everyone elses eyes or you wouldnt be here defending it, my advice would be to play what makes you happy and forget everyone else, the odds are pretty good your not going to change anyone elses opinion, just like this certainly hasn’t changed yours.

I’m not going to lose any sleep over someone coming in here and complaining about PU for the 37,275th time. I’m simply calling it what it is, and that it is a complaint. He can couch that as saying he “respects” those who don’t use it, but it’s pretty transparent.

I’m also pushing back against the meme that there’s something wrong about using stealth as a mesmer, because there isn’t. IMO, a mesmer that uses stealth and tries to confuse people into attacking clones is being a lot truer to the idea behind the class than someone who just uses his clones as damage-delivery mechanisms. There’s nothing wrong with playing that way, mind you, but there’s also nothing more “respectable” about it either. And, again IMO, it just makes mesmer into yet another class that tosses damage at people.

And IME, “not fun” is code for “simpler”. Everyone has more fun when they are winning, and again, this is a class that is supposed to be designed to be annoying and tricky rather than direct and simple to deal with. People like the OP prefer mesmers who don’t use stealth because they’re simpler to deal with. (Which, before I get flamed, is not the same thing as “easier to beat”.)

hihey.1075:

Yep, they are less worthy of my respect. Which does not mean that they are not respectful.

It does mean that those objecting to the tone of the thread really were reading it pretty much spot on.

hihey.1075:

/respect.

Give me a break.

Hedger.9261:

is any one else bothered that mesmer’s one bunker build is labeled “cheese” while all the others are glass cannons?

How dare you play an effective spec?
You should obviously play the weakest spec, so other players have an easier time beating you.

Also remember the universal MMORPG balancing scheme:
a) If you win, your class is balance and you are seriously skilled.
b) If you lost, the other player’s spec is cheese and they need a nerf. Also, they’re skillless, they have to play a cheese spec.

Ross Biddle.2367:

The crutch comment is hilarious. Drop stealth and attempt playing without the staff. Hell, the thing is the same shape and size of an actual crutch.

Staff was THE mesmer crutch pre PU craze. Still is at the end of the day, as is being demonstrated by this thread.

They’re both symptoms of our designed main defence – clones to confuse enemies – not working. Clones don’t confuse anyone, they’re too fragile and don’t act lifelike enough. Ofc we depends on extra defences left right and centre as a result.

Marsares.2053:

Simonoly.4352:

Well I don’t blame people for utilising builds that are far more accommodating than most as they’re just using what Anet provides. However, I’m not a big fan of PU and the playstyle it encourages, so I’m back to shatter and sc/p + staff condi build myself. I imagine many regular Mesmer players have already become bored with PU and are moving onto lockdown builds

Same… ran with PU for the first time in ages yesterday and it’s just a crutch. Rarely died but was just so dull.

Back to my staff + sword / sword lockdown spec… much more fun. Die a lot more but when I win it’s a lot more satisfying.

The crutch comment is hilarious. Drop stealth and attempt playing without the staff. Hell, the thing is the same shape and size of an actual crutch.

Staff was THE mesmer crutch pre PU craze. Still is at the end of the day, as is being demonstrated by this thread.

is any one else bothered that mesmer’s one bunker build is labeled “cheese” while all the others are glass cannons?

If you are a WvW regular, you should already be familiar with most of the Commanders on your server. Last weekend I saw a new commander tag in EB. I had never seen him before, and I thought he was probably a new guy who just bought a tag.

After joining up, a few minutes later I saw how he was moving and how he was talking in the chat, it became clear he was undecided, not really sure what strategy to use, and I knew for sure he was a new commander.

After we got wiped, he apologized to everyone for his inexperience and said, “Wow, this is hard work.” I being a fairly new commander myself, just said, “Don’t worry everyone starts somewhere. Good effort.” Because I know how hard it is to command (especially PUG commanding) and I couldn’t have done much better than he did.

There is no need for these extra commander colors if you’re just worried about someone being an experienced commander or not. Any regular WvW player would know which commanders are worth following and which aren’t. The commander in my above anecdote didn’t have a big following; obviously the people who are regulars also knew he was new, having never seen him before, and probably wanted to wait and see if he was a prodigy or not.

Awesome!

Now if I would actually need to portal around more often, I would totally do that for myself as well. Nice!

Awesome!
I hope Anet doesn’t ban things like this -.-

Ohh that’s great too. Thanks!

This looks great. I’ve been a mesmer since release and still have a hard time judging my portal distance sometimes.

There’s an easier way.
1) Zoom minimap in 100%
2) Maximize size of minimap (make it as big & square as you can)
3) Set minimap to rotate with direction your character is facing
4) Place personal waypoint where you drop portal entrance (alt+left click minimap)
5) Keep running until that personal waypoint is on the edge of your minimap & in the center of whatever edge it’s on
6) That’s the max range of portal
7) ???
8) Profit

Rising Dusk.2408:

I cannot stress this enough, and I truly mean no offense when I say it, but Divinity Runes are for bad players who can’t make up their mind on what they want and/or are unwilling to change armor sets to adjust for a situation.

No offense taken. I simply don’t want to be good in my hobbies. That’s what I do during the day already.
In videogames, fun is far more important, and oftentimes gimping yourself leads to more fun. I have more fun wiping with silly builds than stress about the perfect speedrun.

If I’d really put the effort in videogames, which I put into my family and job, I’d be #5 sPVP. But why would I? Got an awesome job and beautiful fiancée. My hobbies are the place where I can kitten around and not worry about the perfect numbers. That’s a choice and I proudly stand by it.

Painbow.6059:

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance? More dps = stuff dies quicker = gold quicker am I not right? people want to play healers not needed in gw2 people want to play tank not needed in gw2, defensive gear not needed in gw2, making these specific roles would damage the game as it would mean you need a tank and a healer and dps roles with no mid points, if a group just specs for max dps and brings 1 guard along with them using a 20,25,0,0,25 build that is enough support for anything outside fractals along with good damage

People don’t like dps dominance because it:

Invalidates the majority of gear sets (in PvE).
Reduces team composition variety.
Removes entire professions from the equation in many groups.
Removes the option to play roles other than dps – kills the “play your way” philosophy of the game.

Basically, I bolded every part of your statement that IS in fact, a problem with the current game design. Guild Wars 2 was not intended to not have any roles – it was designed to allow everyone to play every role effectively regardless of their class and for groups to not require any particular combination of roles to function. There’s a pretty distinct difference. The way things are intended to be would allow anyone to (theoretically) make more-or-less comparable contributions while playing the way they wish do. The way that the game currently is – the way which you blindly seem to support – makes every playstyle that isn’t dps entirely redundant (in PvE).

aspirine.6852:

So you are saying the hammer is slow? I’m not sure but that is the message I am getting from this..

Whoa dude, slow down. Don’t jump to conclusions. Let’s let this auto-attack chain marinate a little bit more first.

Hey a-net, I think it is awesome you have designed a weapon for aging people with poor eye and is sight suitable for those who have response times of 15ms. But for us younger at heart people I think it is kinda obvious hammer is slow. Really-really slow. Terribly slow. Painfully slow. Can’t even effectively deal with a thief who chooses to use stealth more than once slow. Agonizing slow to stay on top of a warrior slow. Eye gouging slow to stay on top of necro that isn’t using their 25% movement increase signet that is also 3/4 dead, crippled, chilled and immobilized slow. I started using my hammer guardian in a map when you initially thought of skyhammer..so far i am almost about to center kinda slow.

In PvP where the point of focus changes fast, having a 2 second symbol that gives 3 seconds of protection isn’t all it is cracked up to be. I know you guys kinda that it is really good skill and so totally awesome that a 2 second symbol that damages about as much as fresh air does and that gives me protection for 2 auto attacks justifiably deserves some sorta obvious counter play. Really slow obvious counter play. Highly skilled, obvious counter play that involves just stepping to the side a little bit to avoid..even when your chilled and making coffee you still having a significantly large window to avoid.

People flock to warrior because, if you haven’t noticed..guardian is really slow..painfully slow. Horrendously slow..glacier slow..Many guardians would be happy if the damage stayed the same on hammer, even if you reduce some of the symbols by a second and shaved 0.5 seconds off the secondary prot’s some of the skills create for the sake that their weapon skill are hasten by 0.25-0.5 seconds.

Your reducing crit dmg to make other professions seem more in line damage..how bout actually making the only other heavy profession that can play melee not look like a slow moving avalanche. Yes-yes I know the counter argument about all of their terribly slow really defensive skills…but my argument is play hammer/staff for a month every day. I will take a newb to thief sword/dagger and let them play for a month..then you 2 duel for a 2 hours and tell me that was fun…it is was, it was probably really slow fun. Painfully slow fun…

You have your mindsets, but this is 2014. A lot of your new edition players have been through unreal tournament, counter strike, dark souls, street fighter..we’re kinda use to modern games moving at a certain speed. Hammer guardian feels like i am playing ice wind dale and waiting for my turn again. It is just too overly dramatically slow in small engagements and especially in 1 vs 1 situations. It seriously needs love.

Yours faithfully,
Love,
Every hammer guardian that has ever played spvp

Too bad there isn’t a community coordinator or someone that could talk to use about issues like this.

Karolis.4261:

Want to trade my thiefs downed shadowstep and 2 s stealth to … pretty much anything other classes have, so i can actually make an impact to fight when im downed.

Done. You can have necro downed state.

Enjoy not being able to counter a stability stomp at the cost of a long cast time single target fear.

And you mesmers, it may port you in the wrong direction, and it may mess up people trying to revive you, but the bottom line is that it at least is a 100% stomp prevention with a target. You hit it because you have to, and even if they have stability you avoid that stomp. The bottom tier, get dead in that scenario.

If I could choose port into group of 5 and be invisible for 2 seconds over just die…. I would take that.

Solstice.1097:

Mesmer down skill is pretty bad. I’ve seen it interrupt more revives than stomps lol

This a million times over. Also, the mesmer down #2 tends to port the players into the direction of MOST danger. However, mesmer down #3 is fairly decent…if you’re facing a player that is clueless enough to actually let you get it off.

Burnfall.9573:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/favoritism

Favoritism- the practice of giving preferential treatment to a person or persons.

That’s right, it is called Favoritism

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Balance

Balance- To bring into or keep in equal or satisfying proportion or harmony

Balance?

Where ?

Balance Does Not FAVOR!!

Favoritism Is Not Balance!!

Guild Wars 2 centers around Favoritism and Imbalance

Surprise !!

Hah. Burnfall, you old troll. Have you ever played a competitive game which was perfectly balanced? Come back to the thief forums so we can keep you from posting this kind of stuff and rather argue with you on whether thieves are OP or not.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I can’t believe people still think that ANet will remove the downed state. Here’s a bit of insight:
The downed state encourages team play and is not a solo mechanic.

There you have it. Rely on your team mates and stop whining

It actually encourages zerging, which is not really all that much like ‘team play’.

Prysin.8542:

Thief, Mesmer and Ele need to get their Downed #2/3 skills nerfed. Ele isn’t the worst of them, just annoying, but thief and mesmer ones are too strong overall.

Mesmer downed #2 needs to be nerfed? AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHA dies laughing
That skill gets me KILLED in WvW more often than it gets me saved. Even if it doesn’t port me into an AoE, it only delays getting stomped for like 1 second. Fun factoid: if you start to stomp a mesmer, and he/she uses his #2, and you restart the stomp immediately, he/she STILL won’t have time to use his #3.

Fun factoid number 2: When the mesmer uses downed #2, he is the 2nd one to appear. The clone shows up first, then the mesmer.

In the end, mesmer downed state is fairly pathetic against any player with 1/2 a brain.

Thief ones are mostly just annoying because they move further…but even then, it’s just a stall. And the ONLY reason the ele one is “OP” is because they can move into keeps while downed.

Cogbyrn.7283:

A game itself isn’t enough to keep you interested in it? You need the developer to constantly pander to you in order for you to maintain interest in a game?

Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re ever going to find a game you can enjoy for longer than a short period of time. Try taking control of your own destiny/enjoyment and treating any communication from your developer as an added bonus. You might just enjoy life more.

My WvW doesn’t need change, really. The players keep things interesting, not the textures.

Uhh … it’s not “pandering” to have someone actually maintain a dialogue about issues and problems, almost all of which go way beyond “textures.” If that’s all you think any of this is about, and if you think WvW doesn’t need any improvement, then you either haven’t played very long or you don’t understand what it once was and what it could be.