Guild Wars 2

This thread is explicitly about a cosmetic change.
Suggestions to “fix” the cosmetics by nerfing Chronomancer are offtopic.

Such suggestions have already been entertained and discussed ad nauseum in other threads, so it’s not even a case of discussing a new point, so such posts are simply attempts to bring in your personal hobbyhorses into places they don’t belong.

So I think it wouldn’t be out of order to start reporting anymore such posts that you make in this thread, yeah?

Menaka.5092:

shattering actually treats you as an illusion, killing you as well.

o.o
I have to admit, this is the absolute worst case scenario that I’ve seen suggested, and yet it feels strangely plausible.

Arewn.2368:

I still think Continuem Split should have replaced distortion, rather then being added as a 5th shatter.
I eagerly hope for the day that happens. I don’t care if it’s a nerf, it just makes more sense to me.

Endless.5960:

I would much rather F5 not exist and it just replace one of the existing ones.

Scryeless.1924:

I used to play a PU mes and now I completely understand why everyone hated us.

You do know they just nerfed PU, right? Probably since you played it last?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Xaylin.1860:

Fay.2357:

Nascull.5842:

how no skil it can be ? interupt with a perplexy rune give ure enmy 14 stack of confu and w8 and use 40% condie duration foods where is the time only skilful players where able to win the fights instead of a perplexy noob ? take his rune away and hes performing like kitten

By reading this post, I have been shuttled along a fast track to enlightenment. Truly, I have now seen the light.

Sure it wasn’t just a seizure?

Commenting on his spelling is poor taste if you want to keep the moral high ground . His meaning was transferred, he could be dyslexic, or a non native speaker, or using a phone with a bad keyboard, or something else entirely. None of the above is relevant to the points he makes. All that you accomplished is make our declaration of troll less impactful since ability to be 100% objective has been called into question.

Tldr; sigh more disappointing comments to a disappointing discussion.

You quoted the wrong person. Edited, nevertheless.

Xyonon.3987:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Xyonon.3987:

Never pick air or fire in pve. Besides there also may be new sigils who knows?

Why not air? Didn’t it use to be a good option for day time dungeons? Actually wait, didn’t they nerf it sometime recently? That’s probably it.

It has never been a really good sigil. The only chance I beleve has been made is that it no longer can crit. But that’d be a veeeery old change.

Both Air and Fire received a reduction in their weapon scaling coefficients in July. It was something around a 25-33% damage reduction.

It was a stealth nerf, also (didn’t show up in the patch notes).

Nascull.5842:

how no skil it can be ? interupt with a perplexy rune give ure enmy 14 stack of confu and w8 and use 40% condie duration foods where is the time only skilful players where able to win the fights instead of a perplexy noob ? take his rune away and hes performing like kitten

On the off chance that you’re not being funny (and unlike my comrades, I feel like pointing your errors out if you’re serious):

2. The OP was actually saying interrupts take more skill than CS, which doesn’t require an interrupt. So, your entire point is irrelevant.

3. Perplexity gives 5 stacks of confusion. Mistrust gives 2 stacks. At most you can get 7 stacks out of an interrupt.

4. Reliable interrupts are one of the most difficult mechanics in the game. Point me to the mechanics that are harder to pull off. If you can find more than a couple, you deserve a cookie. The timing is hard, and if you fail you’ve accomplished nothing. Perplexity “noobs” are nothing even with their runes, because noobs can’t do anything with them. I’m not a noob, and I can barely do anything with them.

5. Condition damage is not the problem. 14 stacks of condis can be cleansed, and then the mesmer is boned, because he threw everything he had into those stacks and has nothing left for another 10s.

6. It’s clear you were never a “skilful player”, and the things you say don’t match up to what skillful players say, so I don’t know why you are talking about them as though you know how they play.

FinalFAB.9872:

I think this is a nice idea but would very much be out of balance for chronomancer more so then stock mesmer. Chronomancer can shave lots of time of the mimic cool down and matching it with already low CD skill will place your Utility up time too high.

This is a silly (and wrong) argument. The cost of Mimic is already occupying a utility slot.
The alacrity you’re using to reduce mimic is already reducing the effective cd of the mimiced skill, and it would have been reducing the effective cd of the skill you didn’t take. Your “utility uptime” is, in fact, no higher than it was before, you simply have the ability to have one of those utilities occupy 2 slots instead of one.

Furthermore, the suggestions to make it 120% of the original cooldown would actually decrease utility uptime, as the mimiced version of the target skill still has a longer cooldown than the unmimiced version, whether you have alacrity or not.

FinalFAB.9872:

And in terms of normal play for mesmer I use mimic a lot in conjunction with feedback as the 30 second CD in very short timed fight in Dungeons and fractals tend to be an issue. my reflect up time is very high with other skills traited.

This isn’t a bad thing. Guardians already have better reflects than mesmer, so there’s no inherent reason to prohibit mesmers from being able to have more reflects than they do now. Taking mimic for double feedback is an expensive choice, and will be more expensive for chronomancer (what well are you going to give up?).

FinalFAB.9872:

I do think the CD is a bit high but matching exact CDs would be too short in the overall of balance.

The 120% suggestion certainly does seem safer.

Hiemdal.4367:

Then honestly, I’d rather have a rework to give us some on-crit abilities compared to complete rework of greatsword 1.

1. I’d be inclined to agree, but they’ve already proven that they are too scared of GS1 to do that. Confusing Combatants is just suspicion on our part, but Robert Gee explicitly called out Greatsword on the Lost Time nerf, and they even nerfed it more than just the icd (Anet’s usual cutting through the table instead of just the cheese approach, it seems). They’re too scared of how much benefit on GS1 would come from it to give us anything that could improve our damage on crit. But crit traits are nice, every other class has them, and 2 fundamental gear stats are based around them. It’s hardly fair. So they could keep shafting us…or they could rework GS1.
I already suggested once that they switch it to 1 strong hit instead of 3 weak ones. Doesn’t look like they noticed or cared.
In short, an ability with strong side benefits is only good if the developers are okay with us using that. Imagine if they gave us alacrity with Chronomancer, but then raised all our cooldowns by 40% so that it won’t be OP.
Then alacrity becomes a cost, not a benefit, because the devs won’t let it be powerful for the reasons that it’s supposed to be.
This is what GS1 has become: a cost, not a benefit, because the devs won’t let it be powerful for the reasons it’s supposed to be.
2. A rework of GS1 is not a rework of Greatsword. That’s serious hyperbole, right there.

Hiemdal.4367:

Unless they overhaul our damage significantly, changing our ‘terrible damage’ to slightly better will still have us paling in comparison to most classes

Better damage is better. No, the 10% buff to sword AA was not enough. But yes, we still wanted them to do it :P

Hiemdal.4367:

(I’m speaking from a pve standpoint only, my experience with spvp and wvw is extremely limited and I don’t feel confident discussing them in any way).

GS is so weak right now that it’s barely used in serious PvE.

Hiemdal.4367:

I would certainly take some tweaks though, perhaps removing the ‘damage with range’ qualifier and making it a set value, somewhere between the two extremes.

I’d argue that the math actually supports just making it the max value at all ranges. GS1 is remarkably weak, even at max range, even compared to other mesmer AA (which are themselves weak b/c of the phantasm thing).
This shouldn’t be surprising, I’m sure they balanced the damage based on the maximum damage output a mesmer could turn out with the weapon, which required sitting at max range. So they tuned down that max damage, apparently not really noticing that this made the closer-range damages absolutely garbage.

Noss.4105:

And mesmer is not really a close range class. Sure, at times you venture to close range for some shatter goodness, but the “anchor point” is mid range.

GS1 is an extreme long-range ability. So…it’s still not good, even at the range you think we belong at.

Amaya.1483:

atleast some kind of swing

I like the way it works now (point, hover and spin), I think it’s really cool.
I don’t want a swing :P

As long as the spin actually happens.

Hiemdal.4367:

The greatsword already has reliable methods of aoe damage with the phantasm, mindstab; and to a lesser extent, mirror blade.

For me, the benefit of the current greatsword auto attack is its ability to apply ‘on critical’ abilities; its damage is extremely secondary. Three attacks in rapid succession allows reliable application of lifesteal (with food), vigor, bleeds, and slow (with the expansion).

It’s still not clear how much of a factor break-bars will play in Heart of Thorns, but if they become more important the Greatsword may be an important tool for chipping away at them.

1. They added an internal cooldown on stacking with Lost Time, so GS1 doesn’t really do much extra for adding slow anymore (more reliability, but with high crit chance and Danger Time, that wasn’t really a problem anyway). They did this because of GS1, btw. That’s probably not the only trait they’ve nerfed/avoided because of GS1 either (Confusing Combatants, anyone?).
It’s a liability more than a benefit.

2. Incidental effects like “oh, but it can proc on-crit stuff more!” is not a justification for terrible damage, because those things were never supposed to be the main event, and aren’t broadly applicable anyway (how many GS users will actually take Lost Time? Or lifesteal food? Or bleed sigils?), or are subject to the problem I mentioned in #1 (crit sigils have internal cooldowns, so the extra crits from GS1 are extremely underemphasized).

3. Bleed on crit is illusion-only without sigils.

4. Unlike other classes, mesmers don’t actually have many on-crit anything. We get vigor on crit. yayyy.

Amaya.1483:

Hyo, to be honest, i find the Greatsword 1 Skill of Mesmers is lacking in everything. The most fun about a Greatsword for me is, actual swinging it. A mesmer barely does that and it feels saddening. Furthermore, the Greatsword of a Mesmer does not cleave, which is a bit weird because thats what a Greatsword is supposed to be, a cleaving monster.

I know that a Mesmer uses his Gs1 as a ray-beam and it is therefore completely different from the classic Gs, but that is also the point, where i feel “they got it all wrong”. A Mesmer is most powerful in close combat where he can use his shatters, that even counts for condition builds in some kinda way, even if its not that much of an impact there.

So my Suggestion would be to change the GS1 to a cleaving thing, with a animation of GS5, but you would actually throw out smaller waves of it and swing your GS while doing so, like everyone else. You could lower the Range for that or make it even Melee. I would be fine with that. Sure i know it is not everybodys liking, its just my suggestion. One thing that reall bothers me though, is the Damage multiplier on GS1. I find these kind of things very annoying and really useless, because like i said, i feel like Memser is strongest in close combat and iam using my 1200 range barely at all.

I would like to know what you would think about this. Sure i know the chance of this ever get to happen is like 0,1%. NVm that.

I disagree with your suggestion, and I disagree with your premise that mesmer greatsword should feel in any way, shape or form like greatsword on other classes.

I agree with your premise that GS1 sucks.
As a mesmer weapon, Greatsword still rewards close-up play.
GS5 has to be close, and it doesn’t knockback enough to bump up the GS1 distance even a full category (unlike ranger knockback).
GS2 is all about getting that extra bounce (and the might from the personal bounces), so again that’s close-up play.
That leaves GS3 and the iZerker, which are both range-agnostic (there’s no difference whether you use them close or far).
And then shatters come in and trump everything. Mesmers want to be close.

I like the raybeam. I like the range on the raybeam.
What I don’t like is the damage on the raybeam scaling with range. It caps the potential damage of GS1 at its maximum, else it could be overpowered (except it still does dramatically less damage than other ranged AAs), but mesmers don’t want to be out that far for long. But, what’s the point of an auto-attack that you only want to use once in a fight? That’s what secondary skills are for, not auto-attacks.

Mesmers are not rangers. We don’t have a bear that can run up and tank while we chill at the back firing arrows. We don’t have arrow barrages on GS that work just as well from range as up close. While range scaling may be okay for Rangers, it’s not okay for us.

Remove the range scaling on GS1. Make GS1 cleave in an area, not a line. That’s all that needs to be done, imo.

My build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW7flsnhK0YZawRNwtGLvGkZHG+IKnQvjGaAyZTA-TZRFABAcFA69gAo0+DRVGQhHAAA

Stealth because I’m weak. Before the PU nerf I ran Moa, but since the nerf I’ve found it’s sometimes not enough stealth without MI.

It’s not as raw-bursty as Silverkey’s build, but the pressure to cleanse from shatter condis is higher from the condi duration, as they don’t go away as quickly on their own.
That means I can more easily drop a 2-3 illusion f1 and force the cleanse before laying down my full burst, or even open up with Confusing Images to force the cleanse before dropping a full shatter bomb.

It also enhances the pressure coming from staff in larger fights, which has actually made a big difference. Even with all that toughness, it’s often too hard to fight on point in more than a 3v3, which neuters my shatter condi application. But rather than just running away to backcap, I can sit back, drop some staff clones, and bomb a target for heavy bleeds pretty quick. In practice, unless they’re coordinating their cleanses really well, the pressure it applies has been surprisingly effective.

You’re getting hardly any group alacrity at all with Well of Precognition, making All’s Well that Ends Well extremely weak in your build.

Have you considered Well of Recall instead? With AWtEW, using WoR as part of your opening CS burst (f5 -> Time Warp -> WoR -> Tides of Time -> f5 -> WoR -> ToT) gets you a cool 14s of group alacrity right at the start.
While you lose the potential defensiveness of group blur, you can gain some serious potency for your group with that alacrity, especially at the front of the fight where it makes the most difference.

Edit: also, with only Time Warp for a glamour, you’re not gonna get much at all out of Temporal Enchanter. The superspeed is unnecessary at the start of the fight when you pop CS (and what are they gonna do with it anyway? leave the bubble and miss the quickness?), it’s too early in the fight for Resistance to be needed, and the extra 2s of quickness isn’t as big a deal with Tides of Time now available.
I’d argue that you’ll get more value out of Illusionary Inspiration, especially as your regeneration stacks from phantasms will be superior to the regeneration your allies are handing out. The incidental boonshare can be annoying sometimes, but worth it in a support role, and most boons don’t depend on when you pop them to be useful. Plus, if Irenio’s change to pet survivability makes phantasms more a thing (on top of what we were seeing in raids), II will probably be handing out a decent amount of regeneration over fights.

MtD also provides valuable cover condis to stack over the GS cripples and Ineptitude blinds :P

Carighan.6758:

Meh, I would rather just remove DE.

I would request that we replace language like this with a more upfront:
“Meh, I would rather just replace DE’s function with something baseline for mesmer”.
While it became clear in your explanation that’s what you meant, the tagline is what you might call “dangerous discourse”, and risks giving the wrong impression, which we know risks putting weight on a change we don’t actually want (removing DE without giving more clone generation in return to baseline mesmer).

Mikkel.8427:

When I used to run full rampagers, i usually ran it as GS + scepter/pistol for open world. GS clones are great at stacking bleeds with the higher crit rate and the berzerker does great AoE physical damage and spreads the bleed love around. Then for dungeons I’d swap out GS for Sword + Focus.

@Alpha
Have you run the numbers on what an optimal crit percentage is in a condi build? I always feel like I lose a lot of extra bleeds as soon as I drop below about 60%… There has to be a cut-off where the extra condi damage becomes more valuable than the extra bleeds from crits. With how poorly bleeds scale though, I’m thinking that sweet spot is probably higher than what full sinister offers for most weapons (basically everything but staff clones…). Specifically, I’m mostly thinking of x3 pistol phantasms… but a breakdown for all weapons would be really cool to see.

Bleeds are actually decent scaling, in terms of all conditions. In fact, the higher your condition damage is, the better bleeds fare against burns. At lower condition damage, a burn stack is worth about 3 bleed stacks. But at the highest condition damage levels (3k or so, achievable from might stacking), a burn stack is worth about 2.5 bleed stacks.
Now, the value of that still depends on how many bleed stacks you can get, but it shows that as you scale up condi damage, bleeds become more competitive.

As far as damage, I didn’t check rampager’s in my last numbers run, but the last time I did, Rampagers fell behind rabid in total dps, which is currently falling behind sinister.

So I’d say the sweet spot is probably somewhere between Rampager and Sinister.

Rampager has that extra benefit on reflects though, which should never be underestimated.

I think the real weakness of Rampager relative to Sinister/Rabid though, is that Sharper Images depends entirely on illusion stacks. So if you find your illusions dying too fast, Rampager falls off in condi damage, which is when you need to make up for it in personal dps, which isn’t exactly a straightforward process.
I’ve not played Rampager enough to be confident in understanding how the optimal rotations change from Sinister/Rabid, but I know there’s a few who have (Silverkey was one? Am I remembering that right?).

Levetty.1279:

Unlock as much Chrono stuff as I can

^ this. Unlocking elites is supposedly going to be a process. So I’m gonna rush the process as fast as humanly possible.

Rampager for dungeons.
Sinister/Rabid for open world.
Rabid for low-tier pvp.
Not condi for high-tier pvp.

And for some dungeon paths, don’t bring condi gear at all, bring assassin’s (as frifox points out, there are some encounters that make conditions totally worthless, and some dungeon paths that are so reflect-heavy that you’ll want more oomph on your reflects.).

Here’s the thing, though: Rampager’s actually demands a pretty different rotation style. Because it’s heavier on the power damage than the condi damage, you want to work to accommodate that. Sinister and Rabid, though, work on pretty much the same wavelength. So it ends up depending at least partly on how you want to play :P

Edit: In my opinion, you should do just fine in Sinister for most purposes, but if you want to run with dungeon pugs who like to go fast, Rampagers will do better, if they don’t kick you for not bringing Assassins.

Edit 2: One reason for Rampager/Sinister over Rabid is objects take no damage from conditions, and you can’t crit them, so rabid builds do squat to them.

Carn.9473:

hello guys.
Im new on mesmer, im having fun playing with condi build.

Which armor better for PVE Rabid or Rampager ?

Dungeons, or open world?

Fay.2357:

I actually feel it’s less viable in low tier play than high tier. At least at the top level you can coordinate with your team for some lockdown and pressure. At low level, everyone and their mother just spams cele ele and/or shout guards etc that hardcounter the build in most situations, and rotating well will just end up with you in side point 1v1s against those semi-bunkers.

Naw, I have great success at lower-mid level on condi mes.

The rabid build is pretty forgiving, the cele eles aren’t at upper tiers in their skill cap, and without the organization of higher play, you don’t get as many whole-team deciding fights to cut into your condi applications (you know the ones, where the guardian just keeps shouting away your stacks and making you feel useless).

I even ran it over BWE3 without chrono, and still managed to do great against most elite specs I came across.

And I’ve only found two builds that were tanky enough to stand up to my condi at these levels mono-a-mono (on side points). Not to say there weren’t guys who had my number in duels, but there was only one guard and one diamond skin ele that beat me because I couldn’t kill them. Every other 1v1 I lost on side points was because they outplayed me on damage/cc.

BWE3 was a different matter. I came across an engi who was able to just ignore me and kill the Lord on Foefire no matter what I threw at him -_-.
And I also ran into a Rev that was like faceplanting into a brick wall. That was a bad game generally, with an afk teammate and 2 teammates who thought they were Japanese Kamikaze pilots, but even when I caught him alone I just ended up with my face in the dirt.
If I’d been on chrono, that might have been different, but I don’t have the skill to make good use of chrono yet, so probably not.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And no, I do not consider myself top tier but I think of other people not just myself.

You said, quote:

the selling point is to play mesmer with this change would at the top tier in a duel would mean you would have to be pretty good at landing your bursts instead of simply pressing an extra butten.

If this were true, then you, Fry, should be at the top tier of play, just by taking CS. So if you are correct, then you should be at the top tier in a duel. So how did your last duel against supcutie or helseth go? Or your last tournament?

You also said, quote:

I’m saying it’s far easier to “master” mesmer when you have a trait like CS.

This would only be relevant if even people of reasonable skill, such as yourself, which I vouched for, were actually mastering mesmer because of CS. So have you mastered mesmer?
How did your last duel against supcutie or helseth go? Or your last tournament?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

So long trolls.

Glass houses, Fry.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Almost exactly around when the trolls got in.

Glass houses, Fry.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

the selling point is to play mesmer with this change would at the top tier in a duel would mean you would have to be pretty good at landing your bursts instead of simply pressing an extra butten.

1. Are you saying you’re at this top tier? If not, why the kitten not?
2. Why bring up the “old days” if they have nothing to do with your point, then?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

you would go back to the old days

How is this a selling point? The old days weren’t great days for the mesmer.

Quadox.7834:

Feel free to support Confounding Suggestions as it is now, i don’t mind.
_____________________________________________________
But know that, by doing so, you are effectively supporting:

- Mesmer class being easier, lower skill cap, smaller gap between a decent Mesmer and an amazing Mesmer, mechanically.

- Limiting build choices by having one much, MUCH better trait out of three.

1. It’s not a lower skill cap, it’s a higher skill floor. If you nerfed CS to have “more counterplay”, the skill cap wouldn’t go up, because current mesmers can just go without CS if they like. (Edit: in case you don’t get it, a “skill cap” is defined as the highest potential power achievable by high skill. If more skill = more power, that’s a higher skill cap. But removing options doesn’t raise the skill cap because the potential power doesn’t go up.)

2. Competing with crappy traits does not justify nerfing a good one.

3. There’s nothing wrong with a lower skill floor, FrenchFry’s ungrounded assertions aside.

Edit: Regarding #1, the fact that FrenchFry didn’t spot that error, and in fact affirmed it, just points out that Fry is talking out his kitten here. Sorry man, but you stepped into that one.

eldenbri.1059:

Yes, it makes sense to shatter at that moment. Then Chronophantasma kicks in and you have 3 new phantasms. Now you ideally want to give at least the two Avengers a second to attack again. But someone comes running at you, and you instinctively hit your scepter block.

In that case, it would be nice to keep the three phantasms and not create the scepter clone.

That’s why I suggested one option was to have the overwrite behavior governed by having phantasm traits equipped since my current build has both Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory. It’s clear that phantasms are more valuable to me than clones.

I would argue that even not having a phantasm trait, any build that gets 3 illusions up will value keeping that 3rd phantasm more than spawning a clone in its places 99.9% of the time.
And even if those edge cases occur, they are so marginal and so rare that it’s not worth the far more common loss of having to avoid clone skills/traits when you have 3 phantasms up.

tl;dr: Without illusion-death effects, the advantages of clones being able to overwrite phantasms are dwarfed by the disadvantages.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

First you have to get up 100% stability duration, and even then, you can just use your f2 shatter to attempt to remove it.

1. No, you don’t. You just need enough stability to not get stunned exactly when the mesmer wants you to. If the first 5s of the engagement you have stability, that’s 5s you can be fully effective, and the mesmer cannot. Permanent stability would, in fact, be a total hard counter to CS and interrupt builds without any boon rip.
2. I already asked you why you can “just use your f2 shatter” when that destroys the illusions you need for your burst (that, or it doesn’t guarantee the stability gets cleared, since SC only strips one boon per illusion). You didn’t answer, so this point is already dead in the water.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

but the point is only one build I can think of ( BD on mesmer ) can keep up even close to permanent stability.

See above, don’t need permanent stability. You just need enough to open up counterplay.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Either way I still feel like there is a difference between the two traits.

You can feel it all you want, doesn’t make it true. The truth is that Anet has almost never considered being in different trees to be a sufficient differentiator (all exceptions have had very, very specific reasons). And for good reason.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

The only other idea to add more counterplay to CS is to completely change what it does which actually seems like a good idea.

Your penchant for hyperbole is weird. Saying there’s only one other idea, then mentioning a different one right after that? Come on, man.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

As for swapping CS and FI you could do that but CS would still have just as much counterplay as before.

WTH, man?
Your biggest argument against existing counterplay is boon strip on f2, which you just mentioned above. But swapping CS and FI means no boon strip on f2, which automatically increases counterplay against CS, which means by definition that CS won’t “have just as much counterplay as before”.
I already said this, and you flat-out ignored me! What is your problem??

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yes they are pretty close but CI also does other stuff too. Anyway Quadox also has a good suggestion. We could just totally change the trait. That’s another way to do it and actually not a bad idea. Might make the other traits there actually have some use.

So, you’re saying that not only is CI essentially the same (but with no icd) as your proposed CS, but it’s strictly better because CI does other stuff too?

Alternatively, swapping CS with Furious Interruption would also make the other traits there actually have some use, and it would make Furious Interruption have some use, and it would make CS have more of a cost of use, and it would remove the most significant source of boon rip mesmers have if they want CS, which would deal with your concern that stability is not a valid counter to CS (since mesmers would then only be able to boon rip with sword AA, which is hardly a skill-less exchange).

Speaking of that boon rip, why do you think boon rip is a good counter to stability for CS users? The only good source of boon rip we have for burst play is Shattered Concentration, but using a shatter to tear down stability before you hit them with MoD just means you won’t have illusions up for the burst on CS, does it not? So then you’re playing a back-and-forth timing game, trying to carefully thread the needle on exactly when to drop the rip shatter, then spawn illusions, then MoD, then burst…and at that point, you’ve reentered the domain of skill and counterplay that you’re so concerned about.

SlimChance.6593:

I think Seyiwaji’s point is about the ability to strategically generate/place clones (into a shatter) that DE/Decoy/Mirror Images provides.

If new clones stopped overwriting phantasms, then there goes that ability.

As I mentioned in my early post, it should be looked at. Adding a new trait that could be selected that would prevent the clone replacement (when 3 illusions are already out) in exchange for some type of buff/effect. For example, Phase Retreat would generate “might” instead of a clone if there are already 3 illusions.

Again make a trait so that “phantasm builds” would benefit from it. Without hurting current mechanics.

In what circumstances are you imagining having 3 phantasms out, and needing to eliminate one of them to place a clone, rather than shattering and generating new clones/phantasms?

Seyiwaji.4082:

Never a Dev said, this might happen. The community made a suggestion. They never said, it is ok.

And you don’t seem to be willing to understand.
so, i’ll just leave this last sentence for you.
If you can not handle DE, just don’t use it. Since it seems you just talk about DE.

but the Thread starter is talking about clone overwriting. and not just DE.

This is more an issue of “learn to play” than a technical/design problem.
Which idiot would use DE, with a phantasm based build?
You arguments were never valid.

About the scepter, it is not less punishing. than a sword or a greatsword.
The weapon is made for clone production. If you can not handle it; let it.

+ you don’t need to use your auto attack like a robot..

Whatever:
your point of view, my point of view.

you want some change? make vaild suggestions.
I am quite happy the way it is now.
If you are not…. yeah… so…. “do your best”

I kind of feel like I might understand this post better if you wrote it in your native language, and just let me run it through google translate.
“If you can not handle it; let it” doesn’t make any sense in English. Let it what?
Most of the post feels like this, you’re using some words that seem appropriate, but the ideas are half-formed or making grammatical assumptions that aren’t valid. I’m finding it almost impossible to sort out what in what you said is wrong, and what is just communicated wrong.

Most “standard” builds are “viable” in all pve content, and a lot of non-standard builds besides, as long as you define “viable” as “can do the content without getting your group killed or really really angry at you”.

That said, support mesmer currently (as in, boonshare mesmer) is not part of the “meta” for dungeons, as it brings little to the table that isn’t better provided by someone else.

If it doesn’t get changed between now and then, Chronomancer support is going to be a must-have for meta groups in HoT.

Value mesmer brings to pve content right now:

• Reflects. Guardian arguably does it better, but there are many places where mes is better.
• Portal. There are a number of skips that can be done with portal that can’t be done another way.
• A warm body. If you’re playing with a guild or any casual pug where you’re not trying to speedrun a dungeon, most thought-out mesmer pve builds do just fine. Just don’t try to bring interrupts to a boss fight.

If you’re trying to run with optimized groups, you’ll just have to get used to being zerker/assassins, and knowing exactly where your portal/reflects are needed. They won’t bring you otherwise.

If you’re waiting for HoT for serious pve play, there isn’t a chronomancer build besides alacrity/quickness support that will be taken by serious groups. So learn Pyro’s well rotation, and figure out which “secondary” role you want your support chrono to play (power damage, boonshare and even condi have all been shown to have distinct advantages/disadvantages of their own).

SlimChance.6593:

ONLY when CS became a 100% daze to stun, are players complaining about MoD. So to me, if anything should be nerfed it should be CS.

CS came in at the same time as the 7 interrupt traits. You can blame CS, but Mesmer has so much interrupt support generally that interrupt builds are every bit as strong as lockdown builds.
Don’t need CS to interrupt, though.

atlrising.5134:

Go troll someone else son.

Que? You accused another forumite, one who has been contributing (if frustratingly so) heavily to the forums, actually discussing the ins and outs of the class, of not actually playing mesmer.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t appear that any of your posts are constructive, so I have absolutely zero indication that you actually think about the class, or play it.

Turnabout is fair play, “troll”.
Or to put it another way, “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”.

atlrising.5134:

This is simple in my book, if your not a Mesmer player than you dont belong here making complaints. Get lost. Go bug an ele or something.

I can testify that FrenchFry is a mesmer player, and a decent duelist in his own right.

While he makes some pretty specious claims and arguments at times, he is at the very least a skilled player. You can’t dismiss him on those grounds :P

For testimonials, I suggest you ask Chaos Archangel how his last set of duels with the Fry ended up :P

You, meanwhile, hadn’t made a single post on the mesmer forums (almost entirely in the PvP forums) until that sudden “let’s rally the mesmer community!” post you made randomly. Since then, while I’ve seen you chime in a few places, none of your posts have been constructively contributing to the concepts of the class. Are you sure you’re a mesmer player, and not just a troll pretending to be?

lolveil.

But you haven’t told us whether you are playing more in pvp, pve or wvw..

GummiBear.2756:

Ehmm… unless they cahnged that quite recently, clones have not been overwriting phantasm for a VERY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time

Happened to me at least once yesterday.
Are you sure you’ve been actually bothering to get 3 phantasms up?

apharma.3741:

I’m sorry but I see no reason why a mesmer cannot have a build that will gently ease you into the class.

Why is it every other class is allowed all the cotton wool padding, warm gentle hugs and passive kitten but noooo memser can’t have anything remotely like that. I mean I can’t even find a single auto immune trait in the entire class outside of pairing blurred inscriptions with SoI auto cast on phantasms.

No, mesmer needs to immediately pound the faces of anyone that wants to play it 6 feet under the dirt, stomp on it a few times. If they didn’t get the idea from that the class immediately sets fire to the player for good measure. Heaven forbid it be an enjoyable and welcoming class to play with no bugs and grossly unfair PvE mechanics rendering the class almost unusable.

QFT

Oh, and I forgot: don’t summon the clone on top of the target anymore :P

Vieux P.1238:

The balls needs to explode on impact at a 240’ radius damaging all with in it.

Honestly this. Engineer has better condi application, deeper stacks, burning, and their AA is an AoE that applies better bleed and is faster than the scepter anyway.

Fix the scepter attack slowing down from far away, stop clones from overwriting phantasms, spawn the clone right in front of you instead of on the target, and make the scepter AA an AoE.

Also, rather than tinker with the nature of the block, I’d say reduce the cast+aftercast on it. I can’t count the number of times I was trying to use the block to get out of trouble, and the timing just caused more problems than it solved. Players make too many attacks for it to be a reliable sustained defense, but the animations make it too slow to be a reliable instant defense.

Forum bug

/15char

Xyonon.3987:

The last posts from you two Alphathe and Telekinesis were much more satisfying and informative to read than everything else ‘til now. I’m amazed in a good way!

So lets drop the current topic about power vs condi for a moment, I’d like to talk about something new: I believe there will be new stat choices in HoT, maybe even all of them. So if you could choose 3 stats, 1 major and 2 minor, wich one would you choose?

Just an example: you could play condi and be strong with reflects with a combination of condition damage, ferocit and precision. Yet the direct damage will be extremly low then, wich would support condi shatter + clones.

What do you think? Maybe there will be even 4 stats, yet with no major? What stats could be even better than the current mesmer? Maybe even something like "precision, condition damage and boon duration? Who knows :P I’d like to share some toughts.

Condi damage, Precision, Condi Duration :P
Full condition glass!

Sombrero.9204:

Condi mesmer with a scepter can be VERY powerful. You can very often apply 20-25 stack of confusion instantly and the chronomancer will make that way more broken.
Question is how ?
Well the answer is easy. It’s all about combinations. There is tons of traits allowing to apply a ridiculous amount of conditions, the “Duel” grandmaster trait applying confusion in aoe when you interrupt a foe is by far the best for the chronomancer wave (and still very potent without it). Going runes of perplexity is a MASSIVE help (though it’s not really cheap).

I won’t spend too much time demonstrating how powerful it is, but it really is extremly powerful. It’s not because people prefer zerk greatsword because it’s braindead to play that condi mesmer is useless. Condi mesmer can be very powerful and at the same time help the team a lot (mostly by blinding ennemies every 2 seconds and interrupting them in addition).

Do not listen to this person, they are wrong.
The only time you’ll get 20+ stacks of confusion with Mistrust is when you hit a group of Mordrem Menders with Magic Bullet in the middle of healing, because they get interrupted by every shot.

Other than that, Mistrust just doesn’t do the job right now, and has far less versatility than Deceptive Evasion.

He won’t “spend too much time demonstrating” because the only thing he has to demonstrate is the mender killing. There’s nothing else to demonstrate.

Sombrero.9204:

Mistrust as it is is not very powerful but combined with the ridiculously op 5th skil of the chronomancer mistrust gets terribly op. If you have just three ennemies packed you use 5 interrupt them twice which lead them to have all 8 stack of confusion for free.

I’m sorry, did you just assume:
1. When you hit 3 people with the same hyper-telegraphed stun, it’ll interrupt all three reliably?
2. When someone gets interrupted and stunned by Tides of Time, you’re at all likely to interrupt them again on the way back?
Because neither of those things is likely.

Sombrero.9204:

it’s just ridiculously op in PvE,

Against mender groups yeah. But since breakbar/defiance mobs can’t be interrupted, how does “OP” apply here at all?

Sombrero.9204:

pretty useful in PvP and probably op aswell in wvw for same reason as pve format.

This was tested in BWE. Even in WvW, dropping Tides of Time on the enemy zerg, it didn’t seem to have a lot of impact. Possibly because the stun is super-telegraphed, so you don’t actually interrupt many people, more likely because mass cleanses happen every 1-2s.
In sPvP, you are NEVER going to land shield5 on more than 3 people, and probably not even that.

Sombrero.9204:

My ONLY issue with condi mesmer is the fact that perplexity runes are not available in PvP and is THE rune for a good condi mesmer (all the other classes have op choices for runes but not condi mesmer ? really ? unfair !)

This is indeed pretty lame. But Perplexity runes will probably get nerfed pretty fast once they get added to spvp b/c of all the qq.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Ross Biddle.2367:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Ross Biddle.2367:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Simonoly.4352:

I imagine Confounding Suggestions might be on the radar still for Anet. Wouldn’t be surprised if Blinding Dissipation gets a CD per target like Inepitude at some point.

I think it’s more likely that Mesmer will just see buffs to non-torch off-hands and possibly staff to ‘gently nudge’ players away from the s/t + GS PU.

I could see a nerf to CS but why blinding Dissipation?

Because people don’t like it. Same with CS.

I could see why to nerf CS because it significantly lowers the skill required by mesmer which used to be a high skill profession, but why blinding dissipation? I don’t see this as faceroll at all.

Incidentally a powerful argument for Anet to keep it.

Neither it or blinding dissipation make Mesmer “faceroll” however. This isnt ele, war, or guard we’re talking about. Nevertheless! People don’t like it.

I mean it’s still not ele lvl faceroll but it’s super duper easy to burst people. Stun + burst. Rinse and repeat. Which is why I suggested in another thread ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Nerf-Confounding-Suggestions-1/first#post5595576 ) to nerf CS and make it slightly more of a skillful trait. Especially seeing as it’s a adept trait. I think its potential in the hands of a idiot is a little too much.

Why does everyone think interrupt is the only way to make things skillful? Is every other class not skillful, because they don’t have any interrupt traits?

MUDse.7623:

oh well i found the mistake in alphas math he said base cd / 1,66 = 0,4 x base cd.
but 1/1.66 ~ 0,6

Edited that, thanks.

frifox.5283:

AC

• Burrows are objects, immune to condis.

Near as I can tell, most objects are also uncrittable (strangely enough, I couldn’t remember, so I ran out and found as many objects as I could and tried critting them…and couldn’t). So Sinister isn’t doing any less damage to burrows than Assassin’s would.

frifox.5283:

CM

• Whole dungeon is reflect heavy, a condi build has no place here.

An interesting point. The reflects are certainly weaker, but they are still reflects. Furthermore, a chronomancer support build doesn’t usually go heavy on the reflects, anyway. It might be worth just bringing a guardian along for serious reflects (this has already been suggested in discussions on chrono support).

frifox.5283:

SE

• Barricades and the dredge cart are both object, immune to condis.

See above about critting.

frifox.5283:

CoE

• Alpha clears condis every time he summons tooth, ie every ~7 seconds.

A fair point. Since the build is a chronomancer support, poor personal damage on one boss doesn’t break his presence, the real question is whether the loss in going from bleed damage to shatter burst condis (which run out every 6s anyway) is worth the dps gain in the rest of the dungeon.

frifox.5283:

Arah

• Champ Entities are immune to condis.
• Jotun is 100% reflectable encounter, a condi build is the wrong tool for the job.
• Belka reflects, your projectile condi’s will apply to your allies and not the boss.
• Alphard has ~ 90% condi duration reduction.
• Brie, first 50% scale up power dmg only, you wont kill her with condis.

The most serious hit that you’ve mentioned, each of these encounters means big trouble for condis. Those paths are definitely not condi-friendly, I guess.

frifox.5283:

In all of the above cases, a power build has no issues as it doesn’t rely on condis, which is why I stopped playing a condi build in dungeons – got tired of constantly swapping gear/food/traits to power to avoid being a dead weight.

I actually have 3 mesmers to avoid that XD. I mean, swapping for a single boss is still annoying, but at least if there’s a particular path that’s too condi-hostile, I can still do the path on a mes.

To everyone else:
Since it appears many of you have forgotten, I’d like to point out that the later numbers I’ve presented are in the context of a chrono support build. That is the primary focus of the build, and the damage type is secondary. The question arose, whether it would be more beneficial overall for the chrono support to focus on power or condi.
My math showed that the potential damage of a power phantasm build (the highest dps build) using iSwordsmen (the highest dps phantasm) is roughly equivalent to a condi build using clones/shatters instead of phantasms.
If you allow the condi build the same leeway to use phantasms, the condi damage rockets ahead of the power build. By the same token, if you take reliable phantasms away from the power build as we do the condi build, the dps of the power build takes a serious dive.

In short, the expected value of condi secondary over power is in a raw dps gain and advantage vs high-toughness targets (hello HoT), while the value of power is an advantage in reflects and anti-condi bosses (hello Arah).
Tbh, that still doesn’t sound all that unbalanced, to me.

All this keeping in mind, again, that this is the secondary purpose of the build in question. With loads of alacrity and quickness available, it’s possible many of the scenarios in which condi has trouble would already be trivialized.

Edit: noticed someone mentioned build-up time. Using shatters intelligently, a chrono condi can provide decent burst, even in PvE. That said, the power build isn’t immune to build-up time either, as phantasms still need to be summoned. This is a perennial mesmer problem, not a condi-only one.

Leodon.1564:

How does a combo of 4 Nightmare/2 Trapper runes compare to full Nightmare? With the nightmare/trapper combo, you lose 75 condi damage but gain 10% condi duration.

I was just thinking about this (yesterday?), and I think you’d probably miss the 75 condi more than the 10% duration in PvP. I haven’t the foggiest about pve, though.
For now, I’ve been swapping out the 6th nightmare run with an orb for pve calculations.