Guild Wars 2

Brockolosso.8316:

5 stacks confusion and burning ticking with 600 were actually dangerous?
or the cc chain of hammer warrior?
or having a bunker guard was a big advantage in teamfights?
=/

why do you want the burn damage and cc warrior back

I needed 15 characters

source please

/15 char

Adrian Guardian.9480:

Too little rather than too much stunlocking in the current meta – only mesmer (moa) does so currently. I wish CC warriors (mace or hammer) made a return.
CC is like conditions – your character take a probably-fatal dose of but then takes a bit of time before going down, it’s nicer in a way than power burst because you can notice what was happening and what you died from, instead of just reading the log afterwards.

but it’s also a way for extremely unskilled players to make up for their lack of talent. when you can spam AoE CC, it doesn’t matter if you manage your cooldowns properly, understand your rotation, or know what your opponent is thinking. it’s one reason why so many noob reapers and mesmers make it into ruby / diamond. it completely takes the skill out of the game, and the skill out of using CC in general. CC is supposed to be intelligent, powerful, and scarce. but at the moment it is the background radiation of every match. we approaching Amy Rose levels from Sonic: Adventure Battle 2. I don’t think adding more stunlock would make sPvP any more inviting

Most of these suggestions are horrible and (even worse) bias towards condi builds

They could remove nightmare runes, that would be a major help. When there are 3 reapers on the other team, and all are running nightmare runes, it’s just silly. Elementalist shocking aura could also use a rework, and gravity well. And I’m still the only one bothered by DH CC but I’ll mention it here anyway.

Or make stability more widespread. Conditions I can deal with, but is anyone else bothered by the sheer amount of crowd control skills floating around sPvP? or am i just qq

Magnetic Aura

1. isn’t a blast finisher
2. doesn’t remove conditions
3. doesnt do damage
4. perpetuates a really boring, cheesey meta elementalist

Then again, I’m bias because I want aura heal-o-mancer nerfed HARD. Would like to see more power / burst ele viability in the next meta. things like the fire and arcane traitline need more work than anything in earth/water at the moment.

any NON elementalist changes? nerfs to scrapper’s survivability and reaper’s access to poison/CC? buffs to mesmer DPS?

*a lot

/15 characters

the bubble glider and Gaile Grey

Doggie.3184:

Me too but it’s a nice addition to the world’s moisture rating. I wish it popped with a splash when you landed though and could be dyed yellow.

OMG i wanted the splash too. Dye-able bubble would be really fun. Lot’s of multicolored bubbles everywhere = easter themed glider

Yaaaaasssssssssssssssssssssssss

Fire staff 2 and 5

No

/15 characters

I want something stealthy and playful, as opposed to the elementalist’s usual grandoise and overbearing presence, which was only further accentuated by Tempest

Elite specialization: Aether/Light

-5th attunement. Aether / Light to keep in theme with Aristotle’s On The Heavens. Spells make allies invisible and reveal foes. Spells are fast casting and have high burst / burn to be sPvP viable.
-Utility skills: Prisms, which are conjured on the battlefield and act as high health, low damage minions. They have different effects when you cast light spells on them

EDIT:Typo
EDIT: incorrect Aristotle reference

Very well put. I don’t personally care about the legendary weapons (I find them flashy, unnecessary and I don’t enjoy chasing the carrot), but they have structured a lot of new content around them and then didn’t release them.

I’ve heard that Leagues is pretty much just the marketing team, and now they cancelled 2nd generation legendary weapons. I wonder what they have everyone working on? It sure as hell isn’t profession balance

Please don’t make it a ticket item or a massive collection achievement

Ravenmoon.5318:

they were a bit nerfed.

a bit?

Menders ammy let’s you put pressure back on the necro with overloads. You forgo the toughness, but you should have almost permanent protection / frost aura anyway, and overloading an air attunement on point usually keeps necros from being able to focus you when they come from 1050 power and 560 precision.

Cantrips really help deal with condition pressure and CC. Armor of Earth is 10 stacks of stability, Cleansing Fire removes three conditions off you. I personally use Ether Renewal (I know, I’m crazy) because it zaps off 8 conditions every 14 seconds, which imho is more useful than Wash the Pain Away, seeing as you also have AoE regeneration and aura heal for sustain

The ledges are a playground for CC and fear abuse

Fashion Mage.3712:

I wouldn’t mind an elite spec which disabled two of an ele’s attunements but enabled weapon swap.

Unless it threw in a whole lotta pork like Tempest did I could see that being very boring

PvP staff is great if your team is coordinated. It’s essentially a toolbox for offensive support and takes an active brain to play. Unsteady Ground, Static Field, and Gust are nice for rez stomp protection and keeping people off point. Shockwave for immobilize is always useful. Firestorm and Lava Font are good on maps with high ground. Instant cast Eart Aura saves lives. It’s a pity Healing Rain has such a long cast and CD, else it would be a great DH trap / reaper wells counter. Just remember to avoid camping the crummy auto-attack and you’ll do fine

1. Stop listening to players when deciding to buff/nerf things. Everyone on the forum is a bias crybaby (The only thing people agree on is to buff war)

2. When you nerf something, give it adequate buffs to compensate

3. Split PvE and PvP. PvP crybabies with gamer OCD ruin PvE for everyone else with the current system

4. SoloQ

5. Add more maps

Lexander.4579:

its silly how a profession with a 20 sec daze skill and the ability to be in 2 places at once (while also being able to instantly transport their team between 2 points) is also able to stand evenly against other classes in combat

i mean 3.5 years ago before people figured out the game it was borderline acceptable, but now that people finally realize how to abuse mesmer’s advantages to the max its becoming ridiculous

HAHAHHAHAHAHA. HAHA. HA.

Is that how people feel about mesmer? really? They get to open a 10 second short distance portal every 72 seconds, and use moa bird every 90 seconds (max with continuum shift, assuming both hit), and so they can’t be good at anything else or it would be unfair?

I am SO HAPPY i decided to park my mesmer naked in lion’s arch for the last two months to play elementalist and engineer. I started stomping people with other professions, and guess what? it was ten times easier, i was more valued in PvE, and no one complained when i spammed their strong points.

GW2 is a combat game. If you want to hold mesmer to the standard of “that portal profession that i dont really play but it annoys me so strip them of all combat abilities”, you are seriously thick.

Ruru.1302:

Alex Shatter.7956:

Please stop QQ-ing about condi mesmer. The profession really doesn’t have much going for it at the moment and it isn’t hard to counter. l2p or stop playing fotm builds with no condition cleanse. I don’t even know why I’m posting this because I know in two months Karl will send us another pink slip

I’d much rather they nerf condi mesmer to kitten and buff shatter mesmer.

VALID POINT but we still have to deal with forum culture, which dictates it’s okay to be a tiger rank idiot running a metabattle copy pasta and complain that “a mesmer beat me in a 1 v 1 match one time please nerf ))):”

Supreme.3164:

Can you please post a non fotm build with enough condi cleanse to survive condi onslaught of current meta? From the moment that you talk with such an attitude..your knowledge needs to be shared as obviously you know more than the rest

I hope to receive a decisive answer and not the usual :“humm well you know..yeah..kk thx bye”..

Chillomancer: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Signet_Chillomancer Necros can bring heavier condition removal than Staff 4. Deathly swarm. Consume conditions. Well of power. Being variant can win matches too

Tempest: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_D/F_Auramancer I bring Ether Renwal instead of Wash The Pain Away because it can remove 6 conditions every 14 seconds. I also bring cleansing fire instead of lighting flash. I have ZERO problems with condition mesmer or condi reaper.

Revenant: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_Power_Shiro Mallyx

Scrapper: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Power_Hammer Brings a lot of condition removal, fair. Elixer C could be more popular though

It doesn’t take much effort to run a 10% variant so you can counter the occasional condi mesmer but most people just copy pasta what’s on metabattle. Mesmer really, REALLY isn’t difficult to deal with. I play tons of professions and consider the mesmers i come accross free kills

Please stop QQ-ing about condi mesmer. The profession really doesn’t have much going for it at the moment and it isn’t hard to counter. l2p or stop playing fotm builds with no condition cleanse. I don’t even know why I’m posting this because I know in two months Karl will send us another pink slip

Toeofdoom.6152:

DeathReign.7821:

Lore-wise, this is great for human mesmers but what about the other races? My Mesmer’s a proud Norn and follows Raven, not Lyssa.

I would love to see a Charr using a Human God’s elite spec, lol.

Who wouldn’t want to turn into a pair of bears?

It sounds fun to me, but “better AI” is pretty handwavey – it might work better to shortcut around AI entirely, for example you could make it teleport to the target on specific triggers etc.

I would love to see commands and triggers be a thing. “Go over there!” and “wait here!” would be mountains of fun in sPvP and WvW.

“Better AI” is vague but there is so much room for improvement, I thought it would be enough. For example, I would like to see the Mimic execute dodge rolls and move in zig-zagged, non-linear patterns in combat, instead of acting like a barely programmed bandit NPC that is neither realistic nor useful.

In addition, having access to mesmer skills would open up opportunities to program skill decision trees into the Mimic’s AI.

“IF opponent has more than three conditions

AND my health is not low

THEN execute phantasmal warlock

ELSE execute chaos storm"

or even,

“IF I am being hit by ranged attacks

AND my opponents are stationary

THEN use feedback on enemy

ELSE IF my opponents are moving around

THEN use feedback on myself"

it sounds ambitious but if they can make bosses smart, they can at least try to make player summoned NPCs smart

DeathReign.7821:

Lore-wise, this is great for human mesmers but what about the other races? My Mesmer’s a proud Norn and follows Raven, not Lyssa.

I would love to see a Charr using a Human God’s elite spec, lol.

Lyssa is a patron to all mesmers, whether or not they worship her :P

I think the only “Lyssa-ness” that would be involved with the spec would maybe be naming traits. Char players would just have to accept that.

Besides, it’s a human female meta

I wanted to propose an elite spec that removed the crummy clone mechanic, and improved upon the areas of DPS and boonstrip, and stayed within the bounds of mesmer lore.

So here’s my idea: remove clones and phantasms as a mechanic, and add a permanent, powerful clone pet named The Mimic. Give it better AI than ranger pets and when you use shatter skills, it does not shatter, but the effect happens around both you and the mimic, and you switch places.

(Attacks like Phantasmal Berserker and Swordsman will still summon the phantasm for the attack, but it will just fizzle out afterwards). The mimic would be able to use the same weapon skills as the mesmer, and hopefully dramatically increase the mesmer’s overall damage. Utility skills could have the mimic do special things like more boonstrip.

I know pet classes are unpopular, but this one seemed to fit really well with the Lyssa lore of a split personality, and with the right AI, tag teaming for high DPS would be really fun imo. What do people think of this?

Try mercenary or sages. The condition damage mixed with the power is pretty strong on elementalist when you use the poison-y sigil and geomancy sigil. Overload fire a bunch and it’ll knock off those who are foolish enough to think you are running pure bunker.

On that note, ive been experimenting with chill based builds and I actually like it. Runes of grenth and hydromamcy sigils work better with reaper (duh), but ele’s ability to soft CC and trip up bunkers while being able to output group heals is something to think about?

reikken.4961:

scepter/warhorn is the best set for dedicated healing

Dagger mainhand has a blast finisher in the water attunement, so you can blast your Warhorn 5 as soon as you cast it. Water trident is annoying to cast compared to the cool breath thing. shatterstone and ice shards are wastes, at least vaper blade stacks vulnerability (not that you should be AA-ing in water attuenment anyway).

As a side note I don’t get the hype about focus as a “great defensive option” in PvE. Obsidian flesh is nice for rez-stomp in PvP, and the magnetic aura is great for condition cleanse in PvP as well. Focus also has great projectile control. but what really irks me about focus is that the water skills are complete bullkitten. Comet and freezing gust are cool for CC but offer no healing at all. I hate using focus, being in a tight spot, and being like, “oh yeah can’t switch to water attunement no heals”

In PvE i just don’t see the advantage of losing Sand Squall, Heat Sync and the massive water AoE heals that focus doesn’t have. Wildfire is also a massive fire field for stacking might with or putting on a stationary boss your allies can projectile combo with, compared to the itty bitty fire line that focus gives.

TL;DR dagger/warhorn is beast

When we say “the average” player, what we really mean is the median.

(___x___)(____________ y __________________)(_ z_ )

x = new players for which DPS and stat discussions are irrelevant

y = the majority of players, who do 60+ fractals occasionally and like to raid with their guild / pugs. Prefer to play their favorite professions and are probably trying to craft their 1st, 2nd legendary as we speak. What I would refer to as “the average player” who makes “mistakes” in fractals/raids

z = the professionals and zealots for whom the theoretical “max DPS” is relevant. They are supposedly immune to human error

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Alex Shatter.7956:

DeceiverX.8361:

Earth and water attunes are actually what lead to the generation of might on ele.

I’ve played ele for a really long time and I’ve never used earth or water to pulse might. Overload fire and fire fields are the only efficient sources of might that I know of

Sorry.
I’ve never been an ele fan.
BUT
Aren’t most of eles blasts on earth and water?

Earth has a lot of blast finishers, but in order to use them to gain might, you would have to swap from fire to earth, blast the field… And then you’re locked out of fire attunement for 10 seconds. That rotation might work out for a fresh air variant… But that would be really annoying to keep up and less party wide might. Overload fire gives you and everyone around you like 15 stacks so most people just use that, or dagger 3 to blast a fire field in fire.

Generally speaking, water and earth attunements are the DPS equivalent of a “potty break”. It is advised to avoid them, which gets tougher and tougher at higher level scenarios. Mesmer doesnt run into these decisions and blah blah blah see OP

DeceiverX.8361:

Earth and water attunes are actually what lead to the generation of might on ele.

I’ve played ele for a really long time and I’ve never used earth or water to pulse might. Overload fire and fire fields are the only efficient sources of might that I know of

Fay.2357:

Alex Shatter.7956:

Fay.2357:

Alex Shatter.7956:

Fay.2357:

Alex Shatter.7956:

bearshaman.3421:

Alex Shatter.7956:

2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.

In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.

What is pivoting?

Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.

My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).

my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)

So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.

Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.

Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.

It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.

Again though, it doesn’t really matter how often you get awful players. The point is that if you’re comparing yourself to awful players, the comparison is meaningless.

“I do more damage than a guy that dies all the time.”

Ok. Do you want a medal? The PvP version of this comparison would be:

“I have a 100% winrate when playing against people that are way worse than me.”

Ok. I mean, it’s true…but it’s also totally meaningless.

It’s more of a “most mesmers do more DPS than professions that die all the time because mesmer was built on being able to avoid damage, and ele was built to do a lot of damage, but die a lot”

i think it’s reasonable to assume elementalists and revenants die more often than mesmers, at equal skill levels. Anet has taken very careful measures to ensure those classes are squishy, while scrappers, warriors and mesmers are less squishy. that is a fact. i just think mesmer’s ability to sustain should be taken into account. you provided the counter example that, “well no one should be dying at all on a good team!”, but i don’t think that’s a good sampling of what actually happens in 60+ fractals. even on good teams, revenants and eles get smashed when something goes wrong.

No, the assumption that eles and revs die more than mesmers at equal skill levels is absolute bull. Revs have just as much mitigation as mesmers do, possibly more. Eles have huge amounts of sustain if they just swap to water and back off for a minute. Mesmers hardly have a monopoly on survivability.

Ultimately, your statement still ends up as “I do more damage than people that are really bad at the game.” True….but pointless.

Ele and Rev have sustain, but they can’t sustain and max DPS at the same time. Earth and water attunement can mitigate a lot of damage from elementalist, but not while keeping up ele’s might stacks and overload fires pumping out. Rev has blocks, but they run into the same problem. also, ele is slower than rev and mes and has limited access to blocks.

Mesmer’s defense and damage mitigation do not put the mesmer on pause at all. they can multitask defending themselves and keeping their DPS optimal. [See: my original post, which you probably didn’t read]

Fay.2357:

Alex Shatter.7956:

Fay.2357:

Alex Shatter.7956:

bearshaman.3421:

Alex Shatter.7956:

2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.

In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.

What is pivoting?

Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.

My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).

my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)

So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.

Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.

Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.

It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.

Again though, it doesn’t really matter how often you get awful players. The point is that if you’re comparing yourself to awful players, the comparison is meaningless.

“I do more damage than a guy that dies all the time.”

Ok. Do you want a medal? The PvP version of this comparison would be:

“I have a 100% winrate when playing against people that are way worse than me.”

Ok. I mean, it’s true…but it’s also totally meaningless.

It’s more of a “most mesmers do more DPS than professions that die all the time because mesmer was built on being able to avoid damage, and ele was built to do a lot of damage, but die a lot”

i think it’s reasonable to assume elementalists and revenants die more often than mesmers, at equal skill levels. Anet has taken very careful measures to ensure those classes are squishy, while scrappers, warriors and mesmers are less squishy. that is a fact. i just think mesmer’s ability to sustain should be taken into account. you provided the counter example that, “well no one should be dying at all on a good team!”, but i don’t think that’s a good sampling of what actually happens in 60+ fractals. even on good teams, revenants and eles get smashed when something goes wrong.

Fay.2357:

Alex Shatter.7956:

bearshaman.3421:

Alex Shatter.7956:

2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.

In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.

What is pivoting?

Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.

My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).

my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)

So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations.

Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.

Honestly, if your team is having those problems then you’re playing with objectively awful people. Granted, this happens sometimes, but those are the last people you want to compare yourself to.

It happens much more often than people assume on these forums, though. I think people designing “what is meta” and “what is highest DPS” are the tippy-top of the GW2 skill ladder, and for casual players, these DPS estimates for each class are unrealistic. For the average elementalist or engineer who has clocked a year in the class, they shouldn’t expect do be doing triple the damage as a mesmer in level 60+ fractals. Sure, they will do more damage than the mesmer, but few people on this game have the skill to actually tick 29k per second as any profession. I’m just saying for most realistic situations, mesmer DPS isn’t as bad as people give it.

bearshaman.3421:

Alex Shatter.7956:

2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting.

In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well.

What is pivoting?

Getting from point A to point B without dying, wasting excess time trying to heal / defend, or aggro-ing environmental NPCs. In short, “pivot” = “reposition efficiently”.

My elementalist, for example, in all her glory and zoja gear, is terrible at this. if it’s mid boss, and someone on my team screws up, my elementalist is the first to die. she is slow, and is only efficient when she can stay in the same place for long periods at a time. if she needs to reposition or disengage to resurrect someone, or if it’s a fractal where there is AoE up the butt (Aetherblade), she becomes dead weight very fast. When she is in a tough spot, she basically has to check herself out of the mission for a good 10 seconds to spam Wash the Pain Away!, water overload, and other defensive skills until she can get to a spot where she can be effective again. This loss of efficiency in stressful situations makes her DPS a fraction of it’s maximum potential (28k or something, I think is a recent estimate).

my mesmer, however, can flexibly move around the battlefield and reposition when necessary. the clones, access to Staff 2 and blink, and insta-cast distortion make her much more efficient at disengaging and repositioning when something goes wrong or half the team dies and she needs to be on res-support. All the while she is moving around, her iWarlocks and iBerserkers/iSwordsmen are still doing decent damage to the main target. Ive noticed that in situations with lots of excess AoE or ambient npcs (Volcano), mesmers just tend to survive longer. I attribute this to their ability to move around efficiently unhindered, aka, pivoting. She can handle all of this with full zerker gear, chrono / dom / illusion, and not really suffer any DPS loss from her ideal, 10k (is this the most recent estimate for chrono?)

So my ele’s realistic DPS in stressful fractals hits somewhere at 15k, and my mesmer has no problem hitting her max of 10k per second. So the gap isn’t as dramatic as people make it in higher level situations. maybe i just suck as tempest, but i really don’t see many other tempests being able to sit there and spam fire staff in high level situations as much as would be optimal. it isn’t a realistic expectation when anet keeps throwing random obstacles into the mix like perm-protection, might stacks, and extra AoE to prevent stacking and keep players moving, which mesmer is just better at handling.

Mesmer’s ability to “pivot” has always been coveted in sPvP, but until recently, it hasn’t been as useful in PvE where for the most part, things just stand still and you hit them. Now that more challenging content is coming out, and mobility is more of an issue, I think that is slowly going to change.

In silverwastes and against the stationary golems in HOTM, mesmer’s DPS is awful. but in higher level or more stressful situations, I think the gap is a bit fuzzier.

1) Mesmer isn’t forced to choose between off-support and DPS. When a group needs an off-healer or off-condition removal, the DPS of elementalist (and I’m guessing guardian, revenant) goes down. (yes, in the most competitive situations, a DPS elementalist would never run off heals, but in PUGs this is useful and happens often mid fractal)

2) My mesmer tends to die less than other professions in high level fractals, as she is very good at pivoting. Maybe I just pair with bad tempests and reapers, but I think mesmer might just be better at staying alive in fractals / dungeons. When two or three people in the party are downed, my mesmer’s average DPS catches up.

3) Running 3 phantasms allows my mesmer to do things like ressurect and support without losing as much DPS. high multitasking ability

4) The DPS gained from alacrity and TW in high level situations should be incorporated to mesmer’s group DPS.

In short, mesmer is great at surviving and multitasking, and can keep their DPS sustained in stressful situations better than other professions who hit hard, but don’t pivot well. I think the DPS gap is less clear in these situations, even if their actual statistical DPS seems like less.

What do you high level fractal and raid people think? Trying to be positive with mesmer, now that it’s obvious Anet has no intention of balancing the profession.

For low-level PvE until you hit level 80, run condition to solo bosses and things. Wow new players with portal.

Once you start getting your level 80 exotic, start running full power zerker. Upkeep 3 phantasms at a time and your DPS will be OK. Reflects for dungeons and the Uncategorized Fractal.

Once you get your full ascended, get zerker. Run Dom/Insp/Chrono, Arcane Thievery, Null Field, and Well of Recall. For fractals, boonstrip is the best thing mesmer can offer a team. Arcane Thievery —-> one of those enemies with 2 minutes of protection and 25 might stacks, and your DPS will skyrocket. Oh yeah, and alacrity is nice too.

All they did was fix bugs for most professions. Rev and druid got a nerf

I disagree with the idea that Mesmer needs a condition buff.

At the end of your post you said it would help in all game modes, but these seem very sPvP bias. Getting rid of reflects on feedback would be another nail in Mesmer’s PvE coffin. The problem with condition mesmer in PvE isn’t Mesmer’s inability to apply confusion, it’s that confusion sucks.

I feel that condishatter is the most viable option in sPvP right now, and most forum members are sPvP monkeys, so of course you all want stronger condition options.

However, any buffs made to Mesmer in sPvP condition will only result in people complaining, and then a re-nerf, and Mesmer is back where it started.

What Mesmer NEEDS is substantial, long-term DPS improvements by way of direct weapon skill buffs, and CD reduction on wells and cast time reduction on phantasms. This wouldn’t put it in the sPvP meta immediately, but would help significantly improve Mesmer’s utility in PvE, PvP, and WvW in the long run.

4/10

Move this to the warrior page and make it 50% less overpowered

I’m having a lot of fun using the earth attunement-based reflects in pvp right now. There is so much pew pew in this post-patch meta that it works out really well.

I use warhorn + imbued melodies to maximize magetic aura time, as well as aftershock and sandsquall. Or i use focus and elemental bastion.

Anyone else doing something similar? Hope they don’t nerf this.

Ummm the auras look better now imo. I like the subtle, glassy texture. The other ones were gaudy. Fireball is still dumb but the new aura is great.

Trooper/Soldier runes are a fabulous place to start if you don’t want to spend money changing your actual armor values. Getting some ascended defensive stat trinkets also helps a lot.

Once you become a more experienced elementalist, you’ll get better at the rotation, and wonder why you ever needed the training wheels. That’s when you see people running full zerker / scholar runes / fire / air / tempest. It doesn’t happen overnight

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Ananeos.4587:

• Stealth – outclassed by thief
• High uptime on Reflects – outclassed by Guardian
• Boon distribution/extension – outclassed by Revenant
• Multiple Evades/Blocks – outclassed by Thief
• Conjured allies being its core mechanic (I like the flavor) – Guards, Necros, Eles, and Rangers have that
• Boon stripping and group condi cleanse – outclassed by Necromancer
• High availability of CC for mobs and destroying breakbars – CC on mobs?
• Group invulnerability – gone. nerfed. poof.
• Blinking/Portal shenanigans – blink is outclassed by thief, portal is good
• Cooldown manipulation (outside of Alacrity) – at the cost of running valuable utility slots

Next you’re going to bring up mantras without realizing that Thief has their own version of mantras too.

Disputing a “versatility” point by arguing that specialist classes do individual things better doesn’t do much for you :P

Hold up. It does indeed matter. GW2 PvE is based around short, small scale missions that allow for disposable and re-areangeable parties. Thus, specialized is superior.

For instance, if I were trying to do a speed run of Arah, i would take a thief for avoiding mobs, and guardian for reflects against lupe. Have you ever tried running a speed clear of arah with a bunch of mesmers? The portal is nice for the ball part but otherwise it’s a mess.

For high level fractals, i would take two engineers for condi damage, a druid for support, and the rest tempests or warriors. Or a guardian for reflects. With the toughness nerf im not sure if alacrity is that vital. Correct me if im overreaching.

For raids, i would take 1 or 2 mesmers. The other 80% of the party would be tempests, druids, warriors and heralds.

In short, tempests, thieves, warriors, scrappers, druids, heralds, and guardians are like Mechanical, Software, or Chemical engineers. Solid choices, well rounded, and specialized.

Mesmer is like a math major with a minor in physics, economics, nanotech, and marketing. Looks well rounded on paper but good luck on your interview

flog.3485:

Oh I tell you why: because they like it, they like the mechanisms of the class, Ananeos. And if the really reason you consider worth playing a class is how much damage you can output, I really do not understand why anyone would want to stick with Mesmer.

I think you are trying to compare people who are fleeing the mesmer profession to “Flavors of the Month” who only play particular professions based on how strong they are, and not how much they care about the lore and mechanics of the profession.

This is simply not true. Mesmer players are not leaving because we are not “the most powerful”, mesmer players are leaving because the profession has been driven into the dirt. Not just the alacrity nerfs, but all of the mechanics are just plain out of touch with what a Mesmer is supposed to be.

I find it insulting to continue playing mesmer. The profession is too unique and important to Guild Wars lore to be treated this way, and I don’t want to endorse the way it is being treated.