Guild Wars 2

Crit chance / crit damage:

55% chance / 70% damage:
(1.5+0.7)^(0.55+0.2) = 2.2^0.75 = 1.65

80% chance / 30% damage:
(1.5+0.3)^(0.8+0.2) = 1.8^1 = 1.8

Unless I misunderstood anything the 80% crit chance / 30% crit damage build deals more damage on average. Besides that your traits benefit from a higher crit chance which means it would be even better.

^ = multiply by since * is used for formatting

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Blackhat.4016:

I personally wouldn’t like to see Mesmers having more stealth abilities for 3 reasons:

• Stealth is the key game mechanic for Thiefs and also one of the few things which make them unique. If you take that away from them it’s like giving Illusions to other professions. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.
  [quote] Sure except they are not the only class that has access to it to begin with. The fact that the Overpowered damage, movement speed and “steal” skill isnt enough?

You seem to think that wanting one or 2 skills to trigger a stealth for a few seconds means that we would be stealing away from Perma-Stealthed, Over the top damage and insane movement speed thieves…

OUR Stealth is done right in terms that we dont have the ability to have it up 100% of a time constantly and can noob-kill people with it, adding another skill or 2 on different weapons wouldnt change that. It would allow us to change up the weapons abit. Torch is ONLY used for the Stealth, iMage SUCKS!
[/quote]

• It would make them more annoying to deal with. Illusions, Distortion, Teleports and now even more stealth? If something is annoying to play against it usually means one thing: nerf. We already have enough “please don’t nerf us again” threads in this forum, this would make the situation even worse.

More!? Illusions die easily, Distoration is like 3seconds on a 1min or so cool down, Portal is meh most of the time and is only used during Puzzles and lag killing people with zergs

I dont really have that much trouble against Mesmers and with the use of the “Target” function if that mesmer doesnt have Stealth then they are dead.

• Stealth isn’t the key game mechanic for Mesmers – Illusions are. Yes, we already have access to stealth but that doesn’t mean you should give us more options. Instead Anet should focus on Illusions which is the reason why most players choose this profession in the first place.

True but the same can be said for the other classes that have it (besides Thief) Illusions WONT get changed as it would make them too powerful, they are on the iffy side as it is. We shouldnt just be using the Illusions to kill people, just like other classes shouldnt just be using their mechanics to kill people

Again, unless you took Xxxx/Torch AND the new weapon it wouldnt be really add that much and again, taking Torch is still a bit of a disadvantage having pretty much 1 skill as the other is so weak.

Hell, could even (if possible) make the stealth on the weapons SHARE a cool down just give us other options if it wasnt for the stealth the Torch wouldnt be touched EVER

“OP” damage or high movement speed aren’t game mechanics. Steal definitely is one of the key game mechanics for Thiefs but stealth as well. Just by looking at the traits you can see that Anet focused on those two a lot when it comes to Thiefs.

Yes, other professions also have access to it but that doesn’t mean you should give them more. A few skills (e.g. Mesmer right now) are ok but once you give one of the other professions too much the Thief looses one of his main purposes – to be stealthed.

Mesmers are not meant to have 100% stealth uptime, if you want that go and play a Thief. Stealth is a secondary game mechanic which is supposed to make the primary mechanics more interesting and not to be the main focus of a build.

Illusions include both – Clones and Phantasms. You can use them in several ways and probably the biggest counter is killing them. There needs to be a counter to every mechanic even if it means they “die easily”. The other 2 were simply examples, if you think they are too weak then don’t use them.

I don’t have any problems playing against Mesmers either but once the “casual” player thinks it’s too strong chances are really high a nerf will follow soon. You can see that by looking at pretty much any professions.

If you don’t like playing your profession for the mechanics it offers I don’t really see why you chose it in the first place. You want stealth, go and play a Thief. You want Illusion, go and play a Mesmer. There is a reason why the profession are that different and why you have multiple character slots. Use them and you will have more fun.

And yes, torch should be improved in some way but you don’t need stealth for that.

I personally wouldn’t like to see Mesmers having more stealth abilities for 3 reasons:

• Stealth is the key game mechanic for Thiefs and also one of the few things which make them unique. If you take that away from them it’s like giving Illusions to other professions. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.

• It would make them more annoying to deal with. Illusions, Distortion, Teleports and now even more stealth? If something is annoying to play against it usually means one thing: nerf. We already have enough “please don’t nerf us again” threads in this forum, this would make the situation even worse.

• Stealth isn’t the key game mechanic for Mesmers – Illusions are. Yes, we already have access to stealth but that doesn’t mean you should give us more options. Instead Anet should focus on Illusions which is the reason why most players choose this profession in the first place.

20 points in Arcana is a must (mainly for Blasting Staff) but I prefer Elemental Attunement instead of Renewing Stamina. You loose vigor but gain offensive and defensive boons. It’s up to you though, if you can handle less Endurance it’s worth a try.

I don’t like 30 points in Air. 30 points in Fire instead should work much better. Here is the difference:

Air:

• Precision +100 (ok but your Critical Chance is already pretty high)
• Critical Damage +10% (always nice)
• Weak Spot (really bad trait)
• Air Training (ok although I don’t think Air deals that much damage if you use a staff)

Fire:

• Power +100 (always good)
• Condition Duration +10% (extremely strong for both offense and defense)
• Burning Rage (basically perma +5% damage in zerg fights)
• Persisting Flames (really high fury uptime and more Lava Font damage)
  or
• Pyromancer’s Puissance (good if you don’t have enough Might stacks during a fight)

Playing around with Arcane Lightning + Arcane Blast is also worth a try. Depending on your Critical Chance this can increase the damage output a lot. You will lose some Critical Chance and Burning damage though (which isn’t as big of a deal in zergs).

Glyph of Elemental Harmony is another skill I would suggest.

The gear looks good to me. Try Superior Sigil of Bloodlust if you don’t die.

Check if there is better food after changing your build. I like effect X after a kill a lot. There are other good alternatives if you don’t kill your opponents fast enough.

Mere Image.8376:

Blackhat.4016:

Advent.6193:

I’m calling it now:
Next nerf (7/29/2013, IIRC) will be either:
-PU boons (less uptime, more likely)
-DE placement (from 20 -> 30 Dueling. Still “grabbable,” but yer making a sacrifice in other build areas.)

After all, Mesmers are only allowed to be Shatter or Phant, it seems. OTOH, we’ll probably see some “improvement” for Mantras again. I swear, they shoulda just converted the GW1 Mesmer abilities over, instead of tying the majority of our CC/DPS/Conditions into the “Illusion” mechanic. Oh, right – that’d still be Nerf City. /shrug

I guess they will give Deceptive Evasion an ICD.

P.S. Don’t worry guys, Mesmer will still be a top tier profession for PvP. Even after more nerfs.

What about those of us who PvE? I don’t people comfusing the profession of Mesmer for the skills of Time Warp and Portals.

That’s a different story. I don’t like playing my Mesmer there which means I’m not able to give you a proper answer.

I personally think the change is really good for warriors. Here is a short explanation from an older thread:

Blackhat.4016:

…

Currently the sustain would be ok if the warrior would be able to constantly hit the opponent. This doesn’t happen though since they are being kited until they die. Why? Because the condition removal also relies on hitting your opponent. So what happens is this:

Warrior attacks opponent
=> enemy starts kiting
=> warrior can’t hit opponent
=> warrior wants to use condition removal traits but can’t
=> warrior still can’t hit opponent
=> traits for sustain don’t work because of that
=> warrior dies
=> enemy is happy

If you make the condition removal traits less reliant on hitting your opponent this is what happens:

Warrior attacks opponent
=> enemy starts kiting
=> warrior can’t hit opponent
=> warrior uses condition removal traits
=> warrior hits opponent
=> traits for sustain work
=> warrior hits opponent even more
=> warrior wins

If the sustain still isn’t enough after changing the condition removal traits we could talk about buffs for that as well.
…

Replace condition removal traits with the buffed Berserker Stance and you get the basic idea.

Advent.6193:

I’m calling it now:
Next nerf (7/29/2013, IIRC) will be either:
-PU boons (less uptime, more likely)
-DE placement (from 20 -> 30 Dueling. Still “grabbable,” but yer making a sacrifice in other build areas.)

After all, Mesmers are only allowed to be Shatter or Phant, it seems. OTOH, we’ll probably see some “improvement” for Mantras again. I swear, they shoulda just converted the GW1 Mesmer abilities over, instead of tying the majority of our CC/DPS/Conditions into the “Illusion” mechanic. Oh, right – that’d still be Nerf City. /shrug

I guess they will give Deceptive Evasion an ICD.

P.S. Don’t worry guys, Mesmer will still be a top tier profession for PvP. Even after more nerfs.

I can’t find the achievement “The Big Boom in the Big City”. I didn’t get it when the event was going on (didn’t have enough time sadly) but it’s completely missing now. The other achievements I didn’t get are still there so I guess this is a bug.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

gorma.3725:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

bobross.5034:

One more thing….mesmers have a lot of access to invisibility, but not like thieves. And they shouldn’t have the same access as thieves. For thieves it is their core mechanic. For mesmers it’s a side trick. So something that may be trivial for thieves should require more from a mesmer when it deals with stealth.

Yeah our mechanic is CLONES and PHANTASMS and yet we get no elite that benefits from this mechanic? and again i havent said that ALL of them suck or anything, i just think that they could be more Mesmer like. Sure despite the long cool downs and the fact that one is just a weaker version (and on longer cool down) of a Thief Utility doesnt mean that MI or TW are “bad” but Moa, thats another story i personally think it needs to be replaced with something more Clone/Phantom orientated

Look at the thief guild elite. Its so rubbish, the only thing which annoys me is that they randomly eat up some of my iDuellists projectiles, i find my phantasms stronger than those two kittens, even though I don’t play a phantasm build. There is not one single elite skill in the game which I consider extremly powerful/useful. They are all a very speacial kind of utility nothing more. Not like ulti in league of legends.

Apart from that I’m very happy with TW and MI, I use them a lot. For Moa, you are all right. It’s a bad skill. Long CD, moa’ed people can troll you just a really bad skill. I would prefer it to be changed to something like a stationary illusion that fears people. Like Shaco’s jack in a box skill in League of Legends

The ele Greatsword has to be the best, low cool down 2 swords and big damage. Yeah but the Thieves Guild ISNT just for damage, its mostly used by people who then instantly go stealth and come in for a Backstab or something.

Yeah i would just like ONE elite that actually involves our game mechanic – is that to much to ask for? Look at everyone else good or bad (depends on opinion) they are all/mostly relating to the classes mechanic.

I think replacing Moa with an Elite Phantom that changes based on weapon kinda like how the GoE for Ele will change the elemental that is summoned, that way it will be more useful to more people.

Although I like Moa in some situations I kind of agree. An elite Phantasm would be nice.

It would give your opponent the opportunity for counterplay (“do I kill the Mesmer or the Phantasm?”) which is not the case for Moa (basically running is the only counterplay here) and the skill might be better in bigger fights depending on how it’s implemented.

Less complaints by other professions about Moa and a skill which might shine in every part of the game. I guess I have to agree here.

The warrior is somewhat tanky in general. The sustain is the problem though. If you hit your opponents it’s ok, otherwise it’s not that great.

A friend who is supporting you (or a group) help a lot and that’s when a warrior really shines. You can tank, have good CC, damage and/or support.

The warrior is definitely viable when it comes to PvE and WvW.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Blackhat.4016:

When it comes to elites Mesmer is probably the best profession right now. All 3 elites are strong in certain parts of the game. They don’t look as fancy as something like Tornado but they’re definitely more useful.

There are always things to improve but Mesmer elites are in a really good spot right now which means there is no need for a big change.

Without a doubt the Greatsword from Ele has to be the best, short-ish cool down and TWO swords, ALOT of damage as well. I personally think that Moa is one of the worst in the game, sure it was used alot at the start and against Bunkers in TPvP but thats about it, that could be replaced i think – Maybe by the idea i had above which was similar to Elixir elite of Engineers

FGS is a good skill although I find myself using is defensively more often than to attack my opponent.

Glyph of Elementals is pretty meh – they either die extremely fast or deal no damage. It’s an ok skill if the elemental survives.

Tornado is basically useless. You’re really slow, the damage is terrible and you die really fast as well (Confusion (yes, even post-nerf), other conditions, high DPS).

Moa is really useful for small fights – bigger fight = Moa has less impact. That’s why the skill is good for roaming in WvW and s/tPvP. I don’t like it for PvE and zerg fights in WvW though. Really good in some parts of the game, mediocre in others. Sounds like a solid skill.

The other 2 skills have been explained enough imo. They are good as well.

I think it’s funny how people want to force other players to do what they enjoy. Just let the Hot Join players do their thing and you do yours.

Some people don’t have the time or don’t want to play in a premade team – they simply want to have a short PvP match. No need to look for other players, no restrictions, no long queue, just a short game for fun.

If you remove Hot Join and replace it with something like a non-rated tPvP you basically kick all those players out of the game which means even less PvP players. I don’t mind if they farm glory or don’t have the knowledge competitive players have as long as they have fun and keep on playing the game.

A bigger community increases the chance to become an esport one day more than a small, competitive community. That’s at least how it worked for the last few years.

When it comes to elites Mesmer is probably the best profession right now. All 3 elites are strong in certain parts of the game. They don’t look as fancy as something like Tornado but they’re definitely more useful.

There are always things to improve but Mesmer elites are in a really good spot right now which means there is no need for a big change.

I don’t play my warrior anymore but I think this trait would be extremely useful:

Stop Drop and Roll
Dodge rolling removes burning and chilled. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)

Changed to:

Dodge rolling removes crippled and chilled. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)

=> Warriors aren’t as vulnerable to kiting anymore. Simply dodge and you’re able to move properly again.

=> Hit your opponent

=> Sustain traits are better since you hit the opponent more often

Thread closed in 3… 2… 1…

Seriously, I’m not happy about the current state of warriors in PvP as well but this thread doesn’t help at all.

Just a short idea which came to my mind after looking at some ele traits:

Stop Drop and Roll
Dodge rolling removes burning and chilled. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)

Changed to:

Dodge rolling removes crippled and chilled. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)

=> Warriors aren’t as vulnerable to kiting anymore. Simply dodge and you’re able to move properly again.

=> Hit your opponent

=> Sustain traits work again

I know this may not be enough but it’s a small idea to start with.

Nerfing Protection and buffing Toughness would improve the situation for warriors slightly but at the same time it would cause a lot of new problems (if implemented like the OP said).

• If it reduces conditon damage as well, Guardians would be the new OP profession against condition builds since they got both – high Toughness and good condition removal.

• If it reduces critical chance and critical damage burst builds would be nerfed even more. Most burst builds are already in a bad spot right now, nerfing them even further would only hurt build diversity (yes, this also includes Warrior builds).

• Especially light armor professions would be nerfed a lot since they already need Protection to survive. If you nerf that boon they are basically a free kill unless they use a bunker build (again, hurts the build diversity).

All that to make warriors a little more tanky?

Besides that I don’t think being tanky is huge problem for warriors. They are already somewhat tanky. They need more reliable sustain though, reliable being the important word.

Currently the sustain would be ok if the warrior would be able to constantly hit the opponent. This doesn’t happen though since they are being kited until they die. Why? Because the condition removal also relies on hitting your opponent. So what happens is this:

Warrior attacks opponent
=> enemy starts kiting
=> warrior can’t hit opponent
=> warrior wants to use condition removal traits but can’t
=> warrior still can’t hit opponent
=> traits for sustain don’t work because of that
=> warrior dies
=> enemy is happy

If you make the condition removal traits less reliant on hitting your opponent this is what happens:

Warrior attacks opponent
=> enemy starts kiting
=> warrior can’t hit opponent
=> warrior uses condition removal traits
=> warrior hits opponent
=> traits for sustain work
=> warrior hits opponent even more
=> warrior wins

If the sustain still isn’t enough after changing the condition removal traits we could talk about buffs for that as well. I do think that the idea I mentioned above would solve way more problems without causing new ones.

Nerfing protection and buffing Toughness doesn’t solve the conditon removal/sustain problem warriors currently have, it only makes them more tanky which means you kite them a few more seconds and in the end they still die.

The only place where focus is really useful is high lvl FotM or WvW (pre Swirling Winds nerf). Dagger off-hand is better most of the time.

Because of that I wouldn’t give the legendary to your ele. You simply won’t use it.

albotelho.2931:

I like to see Elementalists and Thieves crying because we are the “new OP” class… it makes me laugh.

Actually every profession is complaining about necros right now and that’s the problem. Once there are complaints the nerfs will follow soon. Then the nerfed profession will complain about it and they will be nerfed again or wait for their buffs for some months.

That’s basically how worked since release.

Thedenofsin.7340:

loseridoit.2756:

Troll.4237:

I can almost guarantee that you have never played a necro in-depth with what you just said and if that’s the case that makes you a hypocrite.

i can guarantee you that you never play against a necro with a class that has limited condition removal

i admit i dont play a necro but i played against them. I am answering your question

why are necros viewed op

Yes, if your profession has limited escape mechanism and poor condition removal, you will probably have a hard time against them. If you’re playing a warrior, well, that’s unfortunate. Warriors need a lot of help and nerfing necromancers isn’t the solution.

However, that’s the fundamental premise of profession-based gameplay. Some professions/specs will be a hard counter to others. Unless you’re a pema-stealth thief, of course, since they don’t have any counters.

Up until now, most professions could effectively ignore condition removal and spec for other things – more damage, more mobility, etc, and were relatively safe. If you do this now and you run into a necromancer, you’ll probably lose. Necromancers are no longer cannon fodder like they once were.

What I do find surprising is the amount of crying over necromancers and not over scepter/dagger elementalists. The last patch gave them insane burst damage – enough to basically kill an opponent in under 5 seconds, but they still have lots of healing and escapes. Yet, I don’t see the outcry there.

Is it because elementalists have been overpowered so long everyone has simply grown accustomed to it?

Because you can kill them with burst or conditions in under 5 secs as well.

30 points in air => only 10 in water => even lower HP and worse condition removal

The air burst build is extremely easy to counter if you survive the first burst rotation. It’s really not that difficult to kill them, especially if you use dodge, protection, fear, etc. properly.

P.S. They aren’t OP anymore since more than a month (maybe even 2 or 3 depending on your definition of OP).

Someone already explained why this a bad idea in the original thread. Besides that being tanky doesn’t equal sustain. This is something a lot of people mix up although it’s not the same.

I would vote for no. There are better ideas to fix the problems warriors have out there.

Imo the warrior sustain and condition removal are depending on you actually hitting your enemy too much.

Since warriors can be kited all day you loose both – damage and sustain. If you change the heals and condition removals to be less situational (if you hit your enemy they are ok, if not they are useless) warriors would have more sustain and in the end they would be able to hit the opponent more often as well.

That’s just what I can tell you from playing against them multiple times and playing my warrior from time to time. More expierenced players should be able to find some fitting ideas to solve this problem.

I haven’t played GW2 since the patch myself but I can tell you why necros are really strong right now according to a lot of people:

Strengths:

• Extremely high condition damage
• Strong defense and offense because of high fear uptime
• Good condition removal
• Somewhat tanky

Weaknesses:

• Mediocre sustain
• Low mobility
• Stability

I didn’t have the time to check if necros are that strong myself but according to my friends, some “pro” players and Anet they are really, really good right now.

Let’s hope they don’t go too crazy with the nerfs like they did in the past.

Signet of Rage is already pretty good considering the really low CD. It’s more of a passive elite though since it only gives you buffs over a long time instead of strong boost for a short time.

The other 2 elites? Well, I have to agree they aren’t that great. Maybe you should give some suggestions on how to improve them.

P.S. Some of the “good” elites are actually pretty bad. Glyph of Elementals (either no damage or dies in 2secs), Tornado (completely useless because too slow/bad skills) and Entangle (can be dodged or removed => long CD) are just a few examples.

Power Block (not sure how to implement it in GW2 though).

The skill was ridiculously OP if used properly and it was quite hilarious to see your enemies raging about it every single time you interrupt them. Good old times.

P.S. I would love to see all the interrupt skills combined with a cast bar in GW2. That would be the best addition to the game since release imo. Seriously, I never had as much fun in any game as I had with those interrupt builds.

Kill new players really fast and die rather fast against more experienced players. Warriors aren’t completely useless although some people think that way.

tPvP however is a different story…

I don’t really understand what this thread is supposed to accomplish but if it helps the warrior in some way, why not?

+1

The trait ideas are not bad but those heal buffs…

“Healing Power? Who needs that? I have my 17k base heal.”

Guardians are actually quite balanced. Imo they are the most balanced profession in the game right now. They do well in every part of the game without being OP.

Anet thinks so as well (that’s at least what they said in the last SotG) and that’s why you don’t see any huge changes for them. They’re in a really good spot right now without being too strong.

sorrow.2364:

Blackhat.4016:

I was talking about both, base HP and vitality. Those stats are not supposed to increase your sustain. They make you more tanky.

If the heals are really that bad (which is not a core problem for warriors imo) you should increase the scaling with Healing Power (not HP).

Imo it would help much more if some traits/utility skills would be changed to give warriors and necros more sustain. That way they could choose to build for sustain instead of having high sustain because of their HP (which makes more sense and would be balanced).

More HP doesn’t make you more tanky.
More toughness makes you tanky. More HP without toughness and damage mitigation just makes you last few seconds more, which is useless.

I think that both base values and Healing Power scaling should be increased.
If they just increase the Healing Power scaling, then Warriors and Necromancers are forced to bring healing power to have enough survivability.

Do you mean with sustain the percentage of damage healed?
Then, if you look closer, Elementalists, Thieves and Guardians have an innate better sustain compared to Necromancer and Warriors with base stats, which isn’t that good balance-wise.

More HP makes you more tanky. If you have ~2x the base HP (excluding Vitality here to make it easier) an enemy can hit you more often until you die aka you’re more tanky.

Toughness, Defense and Protection are damage mitigation which can’t be compared to HP or sustain. Otherwise you could tell me how much 1s of protection is in HP or healing? As you can see this doesn’t work which means you need to seperate those 3 things.

• Being tanky
• Sustain
• Damage mitigation

Being tanky and sustain can be compared in some way since they are both flat amounts while damage mitigation isn’t (if you want more infos check the wiki for Armor and Damage). All three should still be separated though to make balancing easier.

If the sustain is suddenly better because you’re more tanky (remember HP, not damage mitigation) it would make no sense anymore and balancing would be even more difficult.

Maybe the word tanky is a bad choice here but I can’t think of anything better to explain what I mean.

P.S. I know you can separate Toughness + Defense and Protection as well but that would make my explanation even more complicated.

sorrow.2364:

Blackhat.4016:

It has been explained why heals (sustain) based on HP are a bad idea several times. There should be a good explanation somewhere in my post history if you want to read it.

It looks like that you’ve said that making heals scaling with vitality is a bad idea.
What I’m actually proposing here is to make heals scaling with the base health pool, not vitality.
That means that you still needs to stack healing power to have better heals, but higher health pool will be a real advantage.

I was talking about both, base HP and vitality. Those stats are not supposed to increase your sustain. They make you more tanky.

If the heals are really that bad (which is not a core problem for warriors imo) you should increase the scaling with Healing Power (not HP).

Imo it would help much more if some traits/utility skills would be changed to give warriors and necros more sustain. That way they could choose to build for sustain instead of having high sustain because of their HP (which makes more sense and would be balanced).

It has been explained why heals (sustain) based on HP are a bad idea several times. There should be a good explanation somewhere in my post history if you want to read it.

HiSaZuL.2843:

First thing I noticed… reduce scepter cooldown 20% and add 200 condition dmg….. and that goes for every weapon cd reduction skill. Seriously? Could the beloved kittenwit child sign be any larger?

Minor 5 point trait that gives you vigor on crit with 5 sec cooldown. We get grandmaster trait that does 4 second of burn with double of that cooldown. Yeaaaaah. The sign should definitely be larger.

Some traits are bad compared to other professions while others are better. I don’t like this balance idea but apparently that’s the way Anet wants to do it.

Some professions don’t have a certain kind of trait at all (necro in this case), some have bad versions of it (e.g. ele, only affects 1/4 of all skills instead of 1/2 and has no additional bonuses) and others have the good ones (e.g. mesmer).

It’s a weird balance decision by Anet and we can only hope they balance it properly in the future.

If I remember correctly Nemesis.8593 has a tanky regen build on his Youtube channel. I don’t think it’s up-to-date anymore but the general idea should still work. Here is the link to his Youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Iamoneandiamlegion/videos

I hope this helps.

Illusionists Celerity

Really strong for an adept trait, that’s why every single player was using it. Moving it was ok imo but they should have lowered some CDs to compensate for that. Going through every single CD would be too much for a short answer but some of them should be slightly lower.

Blurred Frenzy

Still a really good skill. Yeah, the nerf sucks but it changed the skill from a complete no-brainer to a more balanced skill. Retaliation hurts now but once you get used to it it’s only a small problem. Besides that a lot of builds don’t include this boon anyway. Imo the nerf is not as bad as most players say.

Changes

I think releasing all changes at once is better. Anet is already pretty slow when it comes to patches, making them even slower is something I wouldn’t like to see. A public test server would be a waste of time imo since most players don’t have enough knowledge about how to balance a game to give proper feedback. A closed test server for certain players would be much better since you can choose who is testing and who is giving feedback. I can’t tell you which players would be good enough for that but I’m pretty sure Anet already asks a lot of them (Nemesis.8593 for necro players is someone I would suggest for example).

BF is still a really strong skill. Just learn how to deal with Retaliation (like every other profession and a lot of Mesmer players) and you are ready to win again.

It’s really not that big of a deal.

Try both and see which one you like better.

From what you said I would say Guardian is most likely the better choice since you like the look and gameplay.

Race really doesn’t matter, just pick the one you think fits your kind of Guardian/Ele the most. For Guardians I like Norn and Human, for Eles Sylvari and Asura. But that’s just my opinion.

I think I have said it before in this thread, just use cast bars and the problem is solved. Animations are simply not enough for a competitive game. It would help interrupt builds to be more viable as well.

If I remember correctly someone from Anet saw that idea in a thread ~2 months ago and said they are thinking about it. Let’s hope they actually implement it.

It also depends on what is difficult for you.

If your positioning is really good thief is pretty easy to play. If you are able to keep track of a lot of CDs and know how to use combos properly ele is easy for you. There examples like these for every profession.

In the end they are all easy to learn and difficult to master but it depends on you which one is the most difficult.

That’s why I don’t think some kind of rating makes sense since it’s completely different for every player.

Zenith.7301:

Blackhat.4016:

Zenith.7301:

Blackhat.4016:

It has been explained several times why heals/sustain shouldn’t be based on HP instead of Healing Power.

High HP + low Healing Power = tanky (burst is weak) but low sustain
Low HP + high Healing Power = not tanky (burst is strong) but high sustain

If you only need high HP to have both (being tanky and high sustain) what’s the point of Healing Power in the first place?

There is a difference between being tanky and sustain and it should stay that way. Otherwise there would be no real counter to bunker builds if you can have both that easily.

I do agree that warriors still need some kind of buff but definitely not this one.

My ele needs no healing power to heal and sustain a crapton more than my necro with a healing power amulet.

Healing power is a garbage stat for most classes, and high sustain doesn’t come from it, but rather from classes’ base sustain utilities/weaponskills/traits.

I know about that but I would say this is a skill/trait problem instead of a “sustain needs to scale with HP” problem. The statement I made in the first place is still true

You can’t expect necros to have as much sustain as an ele because they are somewhat tanky by default just like warriors. Slightly more sustain for both – necros and warriors – might help though (obviously only if your build includes Healing Power or defensive traits, free sustain is a bad idea).

They are not more tanky. A D/P thief will gib my necro much faster than a D/P thief will gib my ele not only because he has much more evasive tools to mitigate burst, but because my ele can get his health back up over the 50% threshold much more reliably, so he doesn’t get hit by ridiculous Heartseeker numbers after a single backstab.

If you compare the HP necros are definitely more tanky (Ele: 10,805HP > Necro: 18,372HP). Even if you include HP from gear and traits necros will have more HP in most cases.

Eles have a higher protection uptime which mitigates a lot of damage. You can’t compare protection to HP or sustain though since it reduces direct damage by 33%. HP and heals on the other hand are flat amounts.

Again:

Sustain doesn’t equal being tanky.

and

Necros/Warriors aren’t supposed to have as much sustain as an ele but they should be tankier (if specced for it).

Zenith.7301:

Blackhat.4016:

It has been explained several times why heals/sustain shouldn’t be based on HP instead of Healing Power.

High HP + low Healing Power = tanky (burst is weak) but low sustain
Low HP + high Healing Power = not tanky (burst is strong) but high sustain

If you only need high HP to have both (being tanky and high sustain) what’s the point of Healing Power in the first place?

There is a difference between being tanky and sustain and it should stay that way. Otherwise there would be no real counter to bunker builds if you can have both that easily.

I do agree that warriors still need some kind of buff but definitely not this one.

My ele needs no healing power to heal and sustain a crapton more than my necro with a healing power amulet.

Healing power is a garbage stat for most classes, and high sustain doesn’t come from it, but rather from classes’ base sustain utilities/weaponskills/traits.

I know about that but I would say this is a skill/trait problem instead of a “sustain needs to scale with HP” problem. The statement I made in the first place is still true

You can’t expect necros to have as much sustain as an ele because they are somewhat tanky by default just like warriors. Slightly more sustain for both – necros and warriors – might help though (obviously only if your build includes Healing Power or defensive traits, free sustain is a bad idea).

It has been explained several times why heals/sustain shouldn’t be based on HP instead of Healing Power.

High HP + low Healing Power = tanky (burst is weak) but low sustain
Low HP + high Healing Power = not tanky (burst is strong) but high sustain

If you only need high HP to have both (being tanky and high sustain) what’s the point of Healing Power in the first place?

There is a difference between being tanky and sustain and it should stay that way. Otherwise there would be no real counter to bunker builds if you can have both that easily.

I do agree that warriors still need some kind of buff but definitely not this one.

Wow, this thread is still going on. I remember when you created it and I thought “well, this is going to be a lot of work if he really includes every single answer in his rating”. Glad to see you still keep it up-to-date.

If you don’t like switching attunements frequently ele is probably not the right profession for you. The whole gameplay evolves around it which means there is no chance to avoid it.

If you like melee combat I would suggest a thief anyway. The majority of their gameplay is in melee range, for eles it’s only D/D. Their survivability is pretty good once you position yourself properly and use stealth well.

This has been suggested since forever tbh.^^ We never got an official answer but I guess for some reason Anet doesn’t like this idea.

Still +1

Ofc they are still fine and they probably will always be for a very simple reason:

They have a lot of useful (and unique) game mechanics in their kit. Illusions, portals, mass stealth, etc. Even if Anet nerfed mesmers more they would still be useful. People are simply going crazy because of every single nerf and if there is a buff (which doesn’t happen too often but still) it’s just meh – nothing to really speak about.

In the end it’s like every patch. Some professions are nerfed and people cry about it and some are buffed and people want more buffs. That’s just how it works for pretty much any game tbh.

Oh and btw nice videos.

Nemesis.8593 explained the changes quite well in his last video. Maybe this will help you to understand the buffs/nerfs better (it helped me which means a lot ).

They are definitely really strong right now. Are they OP? I don’t know, it’s still too early imo. Wait a few weeks and see how the meta adapts to the changes. If they are still that strong compared to other professions they might be a little OP.

Try offhand dagger. It’s better in 99% of PvP. If you still think your damage is too low I would try mesmer. Currently eles have better balanced and tanky builds while mesmers have better burst builds (at least imo).

Eles also depend on skill rotations and you keeping track of all the CDs to be effective so make sure you practise both.

Looks like they actually changed some of the traits to match the ones other professions have. The first step to balance the game properly. Let’s hope they will keep on doing this in the future.