Guild Wars 2

I’ll sign on as a fan of 3 and 4. Could be rather fun.

Errors are part of the process. Even the “pros” have editors for a reason. Fun stuff, though.

I’ve been running Antitoxin. Use those babies, some -C. Duration food, and Tuning Crystals. Tormenting/Energy on my Pistols, Fire/Ice on Rifle, need to get another decent Sigil on Shield (but I’ve honestly not used it much as of late.)

Kit Icons … why hasn’t this been done yet? My Norngineer still despises her Hobosack, y’know?

Meh. I’ve said it before and will say it again:
ANet really coded themselves into a corner when they had the “wise” idea to make all move Signets +25%. They should’ve left ’em in a more gradual incline.

• For example, if Thieves are truly supposed to be the “Masters” of Speed, keep ’em at +25%
• Set other classes at 10-20%
• This would then free up some kinda boost for Mesmer and Guardian without half the kittened whinging about “OP.”
• It is sodding ridiculous to have to rely on a half-effective Focus (Thanks for breaking my Warden!) or relatively-to-OMG! priced Runes to get around. Full Stop.
  Enough bloody excuses.
• If it’s such a big issue for PvP, then frigging disable all speedboosts besides Boons, there.

Seriously, we’ve been hashing over this kitten for MONTHS. It needs:

• Dealt with
  … and …
• Buried.

@EverythingEnds
Yea, I can give you that it’s somewhat different in execution. But before the FS/LS split(IIRC), the boonsteal was 1, then raised to 2 post-split, then promptly QQed back to 1. Which is where the similarity with a “boosted” MS would be. Guaranteed, if we got 2 boon removals on that bad boy, folk WILL QQ it into the dirt.

@ Curunen
I frigging WISH we had that kind of skill-pathing.

The funny part is: for those of us who’ve fought Tazza in Sorrow’s Embrace, her version of Mind Stab’s got a larger AoE and shoots multiple blades up from the ground.
Why this functionality hasn’t been granted in the case of PC Mesmers is beyond me.
That would at least do something about the attack radius, for crying out loud.
As for boon ripping, be careful what you wish for. I remember it didn’t take too long for Larcenous Strike’s boonrip to get dropped from 2 to 1, so prepare for similar whinging if Mesmers got a double boonrip on MS.
It might be best to hope for the increased AoE, and perhaps a Blast Finisher … especially considering the amount of either that Mesmers possess.

Ross Biddle.2367:

WhiteRose.6934:

EnRohbi.2187:

Dei Veien.2456:

(the amount of times I have had people ask me if I am running pu when regen appears on my buff bar)

Despite being a Power based Interrupt build, I frequently get accused of being a condi based PU build.

People…

Try playing full glass cannon, no PU, and still getting called a PU baddie.

This is what PU has done to our reputation.

No. This is what scrubs do to themselves. It has nothing to do with us, or the Mesmer class. You need to remember that or you’re just as bad as them.

At this point, I don’t think you’re going to convince WhiteRose, Ross. I personally don’t get the “Anti-PU Crusade” folks are on. Hell, WhiteRose, do you honestly think that if PU were to overnight revert to its original state, Mesmers would have any better of a reputation?
I’d personally bet the Mes-haters would rapidly find the next thing they hate the class for. Maybe CI? Or, hell, we could go back to 2012, when they hated Mesmers for Shatter damage.

I’d say that it’s less that this game needs “the” Trinity, and more that ANet’s “faux-” or “soft-” Trinity needs to be evenly implemented.
We were promised a game based on the concepts of Damage, Control, and Support.
The reality of what we’ve been given is;

• Damage is king by a long shot, even though the Power vs. Condition situation is a frigging minefield.

• Support is mainly broken down into “supporting” damage. Understandable, in a game with no dedicated “healers,” but still a factor that needs accounted for.

• Control is neutered via mob “permaboons” such as Unshakeable and Defiant.

Control is the game’s biggest issue, IMHO. While I can agree that you don’t necessarily want boss-level critters to get CCd like a Necro in the middle of a Hambow Anonymous meeting, the designers have (like most MMOs I’ve played -hell, most RPGs, even!) gone too far in the camp of blocking CC effectiveness.
In addition, the way Condition stacks are managed in PvE greatly contributes to the Power/Condition divide, as a whole. It is thus grossly inefficient, to say it kindly, to build a “Damage” PvE character as anything but pure Power DPS, with enough Precision to ensure an acceptable crit rate.

The big “issue” with Warrior is mainly a matter of perspective.
For months, the class was a beast in PvE, decent in WvW, and a walking free kill in PvP. Unfortunately, as with any large-scale balancing situation, buffing the class to be stronger in PvP has arguably over-strengthened them in the two areas they were already reasonable-to-darned good in.
In the end, it’s another argument for the need to fully split PvE and PvP. As we are now, balancing for one directly effects the other. We also need to figure out and implement exactly where WvW lies on the overall scale. Else, this kinda thing will continue, with a different class being “OP” every 3-6 months.

As someone who also has played (and still plays) both GW2 and TERA, I feel I need to call you out somewhat, Sons. You really can’t say TERA’s CC is more friendly, when you have the following issues:

• Warrior stagger/stun chains
• Lancer Shield Barrage/Block wackiness (generally macroed, but it exists)
• Slayer and Zerker Knockdowns
• Any PvP Mystic worth their salt.

Honestly, both games have their moments of “OMG, ridiculous CC!” Conversely, both games also have said CC nigh-worthless in high-end PvE content. As for GW2, the worst aspect of CC was introduced when ANet decided to allow CCs to stack/reboot the timer. While 5 applications of -say- Blind are annoying as hell, but survivable; 5 applications of Immobilize pretty much eat anyone without good Stability uptime, and/or the right Trait/gear composition.

P/P is OP because it kills folks without a lot of what “they” hate about Thieves.

• No Stealth.
• No inbuilt Evade
• No Finishers.

So, when some hater scrub dies to a Gunslinger, they can’t blame anything but themselves.

About time they start addressing how many Thief skills are negated underwater.
What’s next, Necros with underwater Minions?

P/P also has the advantage of (without Richochet) being a single-target ranged attack. SB, while useful, can end up pulling more aggro than you can comfortably handle. With that in mind, AkiLeaves, this game’s still coded so that melee > ranged, for DPS.
You’re generally going to end up with S/P for trash or bosses, unless it’s completely counterproductive to melee. I’d put S/P > D/D, due to the weaponset’s overall abilities. Cleave/evasion/blind are hard to argue with.

I know how you feel, Carighan. As much as I mess about with other playstyles, I started Condi/Condishatter, and will probably end up in the big Mesmer Graveyard as the same.
Now if they can put away the freaking Nerfnuke for a bit and -iunno- actually fix the crap they said we were getting fixed … I’d almost think they’re trying to push a guy into maining Warrior or something. Kitten on that, man.

@a t s e – Funny how (post-Quickness nerf) PW is suddenly “OP.” Hell, I also run a Thief, and I remember frigging months where S/P was considered absolute garbage for anything but PvE.
Go figure, and I’ve run P/P and S/P since around then. Hambow’s been nerfed almost as much as Mesmers, and honestly was always less of a kitten problem than the HS/AH
combination.

@Levetty – Ironic how PU is a “thief build on a non-thief,” when ingame lore directly refers to both Mesmers and Thieves as favored of the Human goddess Lyssa. Seems logical that both then excel in mindscrew and absolute chaos, neh?
Although, your nerf list is most likely 100% true. One expects a nerf-cycle, but the sheer amount of crap nerfed or broken on Mesmers convinces me that the current “balance” Devs are not the same ones what created the class. Else, they’d be a lot less hamfisted.

So. How about that IE?

Tell me about it, Pyro. Lemme use my Mesmervision™

• Nerfed Glamourbombing … we’re still bugged.
• Nerfed Shattered Strength, almost immediately after buffing it … we’re still bugged.
• Nerfed a very interesting variant of Power Block … and … you know it, we’re still bugged.

The only thing that’d happen if PU eats a nerf is … OMG! We’ll still be kittening bugged in our collective kittening kittens.

Unfortunately, ANet doesn’t seem to go in for combining Traits too often. Which sucks, since multiple classes have that same issue. One non-Mesmer example right off the bat is with Necro. Staff Mastery and Greater Marks, which IMHO should’ve been a combined Master Trait months ago. And of course, the Mesmer example of Glamour Traits in Inspiration.
Another problem is their general refusal to split PvP as its own game mode. A +25% is pretty major there, what with the map sizes. However, in PvE, it’s simply a QOL boost.
WvW is honestly in the middle, for this kinda bit. But, I’d bet that the “big” reason Mesmers (and to a lesser extent, Guardians) are in this boat = PvP worries.

Honestly, if they replaced the Vuln with anything, I could see Chill working out.
Presuming that ANet actually does plan on getting IE to work correctly with all illusions, adding any “damage” Condition then begs for another repetition of “Dumbfire Necro.”

Raunchy.6891:

Neurophen.9738:

Looking at the boons granted it feels like BD would be better for a power build:

F1 -> Retaliation which scales on power
F2 -> Might which is that’s nice for both
F3 -> Fury which is much nicer for a power build
F4 -> Regen is good for both

If BD had been in dueling then perhaps it would have been viable. A build might be power shatter with 2/6/0/4/0/6. Anet doesn’t seem to want to promote power shatter which I suppose is why BD is not in dueling.

Well it’s mostly that they don’t want power shatter to generate too many boons without giving up damage for it. There was already a large outcry when they buffed shattered strength and we could keep around 20 stacks of might on us always. Power shatter only needs a couple tweaks to make it a very dominant build so Anet is careful with trait placement because of that.

Never forget, Raunchy.
A LOT of that outcry you speak of was from other Mesmers. And folk wonder why I’m convinced that certain of the Purple Association have a case of Stockholm Syndrome. I always figured; if 3/clone was too high, go sliding-scale for a bit, see how 2/per would have worked out.
Hell, the same argument can be made for the recent kerfluffle with Power Block. Yet again, a lot of the “holy crap!” mindset seems to have come from our side. Meanwhile, it was at least a punishment for spammy combat behavior. (Although, yes, AA’s should be off the list.)

Honestly, this is why (in a recent “Mesmer improvement” thread) one of my concepts was that we really need to even out the class’ GM Traits. As much as I don’t dislike (and occasionally use) PU, with cases like this … it’s arguably holding Mesmers back.

It’s well and dandy that ANet sees themselves as “forcing a choice,” but when Choice “X”(PU) is this superior to Choices “Y”(CI) and “Z”(BD), guess which most folk are going to pick?

(OTOH, I could see something like this being rather interesting in a ZvZ. Hell, you’re mainly going to proc BD/clonedeath, with how fast illusions get melted.)

This is why I split off in mid-clash. Find some poor chump on the outskirts of the enemy Zerg. Melt that chump, then repeat. Why not abuse some of that “superior in-combat
movement?” Hell, I rather despise the blobbing crapola, as is. /shrug

I <3 my Lightning Rod. Hell, I’ve been using the same spread as Graendall for that one.
I don’t mind Blinding Ashes, but its frequency of triggering seems a bit off.
Haven’t unlocked the remaining three yet, and I’m honestly no fan of AB, since it’s yet another “be support or gtfo” Trait. I (personally) prefer Nukemode.

Stal.8754:

Other classes complain about mesmer = fix within 24 hours.

Mesmers complain about many big bugs with our skills/traits = nothing. Or possibly months go by, then they make it worse. Yay.

We’re not Warriors?

kitten on that, man. They’ll nerf my main two (Mes and Thief), anyway. So their red-named self is dead.

Please. Burn Guardimesmer. Runes of Balth loaded, Dire/Rabid combo gear. Take Torment/Doom combos on weaponry, watch faces melt. For more fun, use PU or PW with it.

Now, that’s an interesting concept. Could be done as a Trait, I’d presume CS and prolly Master level.

And Chaith, we definitely agree on that business. Zero (in weaponset) maneuverability when you go full-on Gunslinger. Hell, and it’s not like we couldn’t have had an “evasive” Unload. Plenty of movies/games/anime/etc. that could inspire such a thing.

Well, BlackDevil … that’s the weakness of most any PU or Condi-Mesmer. Chasing power, especially over long distances. (Although, with all the QQ about PU, there are plenty of folk left who’ll sit there and get bloody well melted.)
Hell, that’s arguably why Osicat chose the Sigils/Gear in question. Build’s durable enough to take some hits, and the AoE/direct condition application can smack the living daylights out of some poor schlub who gets too close for comfort.

• When you’ve plopped Gold for not one, but two sets of Traveler Runes. Because you’re too freaking stylish to run slow, and burn heals or choice of offhand to be faster.
• You’ve given up on ever not being a utility-bot, and just avoid Zerging.

They’ll just say that you’re “spam-posting,” basically. Then they’ll delete one of the posts. Trust me, I’ve had it happen before.

Well, the base spread is what I used for a Condirupt build, pre-patch. Different pickable Traits, I’m sure.
As for Interrupt/Phantasm, I went with 0/3/6/5/0. That way, I could easily pull Traits for Sword/Focus, and the Phants still gained at least one +15% bonus.

Eh, I’ve never been the one to use bears. Or LB, really. (Although I keep both Bows around for “just-in-case” work). Jaguar/Swapout is usually my flavor, with dual-Axe and S/D. Works for my business, at least.

Amen. Phant’s not my thing, but it’s still a class tool. Although, I rather wish it weren’t the best for dungeons … of course, I may as well wish ANet got their condition-stacking in order, if I’m going to go into Wishville.

Absolutely. Originally: Mesmer/Thief, maybe Ele, Other.
Now: Depends on the day, or group

Still working on builds, but I get past that by speccing alts as I use ’em.

Consider clone-death an extra layer of assurance. There are plenty of situations where your Staff clones won’t last long enough to plop out enough autoattacks to matter.
At that point, clone-death will at least smack the opponent (if they’re close enough
to said clone).

Now, if you’re wanting to go shatter-heavy, condi-style, you’d definitely want to play with Illusions, particularly the new GM Trait. At that point, every shatter’ll double-dip your target with Confusion and Torment.

More like; they overcomplicated their codebase past the point of logic. Let’s face it, you’re dealing with two problems here:

1. ANet has displayed that they like the more roundabout way of doing things. Ferocity comes to mind, IMHO. Why create a “new” stat, when you could’ve altered the endpoint of the “old” stat, instead?
2. They’ve also shown an alarming disconnect between the original coders of each class, and the problems of each class. Do any of you think that the people handling -say- Mesmer or Ranger are the same people what originally designed either?

The problem with your opinion, Loki, is that ANet does seem to actually hand the QQers what they cry for. (WvW Confusion Debacle, Hambow nerfs, the breaking of the original D/D Ele, etc.)
As for you, a t s e. You at least part-time a Thief. You should be bloody accustomed to folk whinging about you; why in heck come to another class’ forums and do the same? Seems a tad … hypocritical, truly.
Regarding comments about fighting the UI to target someone; folk wonder why I want MMOs to toss Tab-Targeting into a fire towards its inevitable destruction. Tab-Targeting makes a fight worse on both sides, IMHO, and an “active” combat system shouldn’t need it in the least.

Interesting. Luckily, I’ve got some spare Ascended Rabid trinkets floating around. I could slot a few in, see where I end up. And Rabid or Carrion are kinda cheap on the TP, lately.
(I also noticed my damage dropping off, especially post 4/15.)

Go figure, and I’ve got hydromancy on my torch. I also have a couple of geomancy on other weapons. Something to keep in mind, then.
As for other Sigils, I run Torment/Ice on Staff. Figure it adds cover condis and a bit of control.

You went pretty much the opposite of my setup.
I went for power DPS, mix of zerk/valk/cav/knights; 0/30/0/20/20
Generally use S/P for an offset, although I occasionally slot SB.
Similar utils, although I slot S-Step and D-Storm as Elite.
How’s it work for you?

Of course it does. First, an unexpected ICD … now, a tacit admission of the Trait not working with MR. Why am I not remotely surprised?

Well, Chaith. I’ll give a known heavy pvper his cred. However, P/D being in decent shape does bupkis for the fact that P/P is still -almost 2 years- in, considered the most craptastic of all Thief weaponspreads.
With that in mind, what would you suggest? I personally wanted to see some form of evasion play built into the set, but obviously ANet and I don’t agree. /shrug

While I would absolutely LOVE to make my main a Mesmermancer, the honest fact is:
This game’s balance is in too precarious a position for dualclassing to be remotely feasible.

Eh, condi-shatter itself is not new. It’s seeing a definite revival, however, due to Maim the Disillusioned.

EDIT: (Go figure … I would comment on a since-removed post.)

@ Windwalker
In general, I can see why you went with that runeset/sigils. I, myself, ended up going Traveler for my own setup. As good for Mesmers as Perplex can be, I got rather sick of being outrun all the kitten time.

2/4/2/0/6 condishatter/clonebomb (with MtD), 0/6/2/0/6 (TD and MtD, WvW only).
Was considering 6/2/6 with PB, but then that got smacked in the kisser.
I’m still working the bugs out on these, tbh. Especially since I’ve started a bit of pvp, and am terribad.

Gear’s still my usual:
Rampager weapons
Either Soldier/Knight armor with Rabid trinkets,
or Rabid armor and Celestial trinkets.

Working on Ascended Berserker or Assassin trinkets, so as to play around with more of a full-dps spread. (grumble)timegating(grumble)

Vanthian.9267:

You have the lowest skill floor of all classes and the second most uptime on stealth, I wonder.

You have AI that stays until destroyed or shattered on extremely low cool downs while you dodge around and basically laugh. A decent Mesmer would not lose to anyone in a 1v1 and would only die in a 2v1 if all players are on a even skill floor.

It is not ignorance or arrogance unless you want to take into account Mesmer/Thieves who think they are skilled for stealthing around.

I smell a ticked-off Warrior main. With all due respect, isn’t the accusation of “lowest skill floor” generally tossed at your class of choice? Stealth uptime, I’ll grant you; however, it’s on reasonable-to-“long as all F” C/Ds. As for the AI business, stick around this forum, you’ll find plenty of Mesmer players who’d rather the class mechanics weren’t so AI-heavy.

With that said, I do disagree with certain nerfs to the Warrior profession. Especially the wackiness done unto Longbow. However, a decent Warr is still a major threat, and I’d think we can agree on that fact.

• Condense Glamour Traits in the Inspiration line. By all means, make the combined result a Master Trait. But, it needs done.
• Either: a.) Rework Confusing Enchantments to obey the AoE target limit; or b.) keep it as is, but make it a GM
• Yes on removing the Blinding Befuddlement ICD; it was stupid.
• Revert some of the lost WvW Confusion damage. Honestly, a 50% drop was a bit too too much. 25-33% drop from “base” would have done the bloody job, especially when one considers that Mesmer’s supposed to be the “Confusion” guru.
• Why is the Confusion-on-Interrupt Trait on Warriors, of all things?
• Yes on improving Scepter AA and #3, undecided on #2
• TW as a Glamour. Enough excuses, just do it.
• Yes x1000 on removing Moa. Perhaps an Elite Phantasm or Signet? Hell, why not Time Stop?
• Mind Stab needs to have the effect and AoE of Tazza’s variant. It’s not like the precedent doesn’t already exist in the codebase.
• Revert part of the Power Block hotfix. Sure, leave Autoattacks be, but there’s no
  logical reason it shouldn’t function against Thief #2-#5 skills. That’s just silly, especially since Chill already gets crapcanned against ’em.
• Fix. Frigging. IE. Fix it yesterday.
• Rework IMage. Gods know we’ve brainstormed a buttload of possible ideas, here.
• If we need to “shave” Phantasm damage, either; a.) Remove the stacking of Empowered Illusions with Phantasmal Strength (allows a bit more diversity of how you want to buff your Phants); or b.) Remove EI completely.
  In either case, you want to then restore some of that lost damage to the Mesmer themselves, as class damage is balanced by the existence of Phantasms.
• Rework all GM Traits to be equally desirable. This can be said for any class, though.
• Rework or Replace lesser-used Traits. I’m sure any of us in this forum can name a couple, tbh.

Once these things are finally accomplished, we can at least see the Mesmer class as it should function, and only minor, periodic adjustments would be needed afterward.
MINOR adjustments, Anet! Like what you guys did for Healing Signet, not the WvW Confusion Debacle, or what happened to the old-style D/D Ele.

I took the opposite approach, Sublimatio. Condi, or Hybrid Pow/Condi, sigils of Tormenting/Ice. I’d rather control your movements, and then tear you apart.
As for your concern, hedition, a fun reason so many folks run zerk Staff is that
IWarlock bases his attacks from Power, and gains bonus damage from the # of
conditions on the target. Honestly, I myself would have made it the class’ 2-hander
“pure” condition weapon, but whatevs … I use it regularly. That amount of defense and utility is hard to give up, except if you’re running dungeons.

I’d vote Traveler. Generic enough to work for either Ele or Mesmer, and plenty useful for a WvW Mesmer. After all, most folk use a Soldier’s set primarily for WvW business.
Although, if you don’t mind a more “focused” stat-boost with your movespeed, Superior Speed. Especially since Eles have garbage Health :P