Guild Wars 2

Yes LctL, this is the nail in the coffin. Best quit now.

Levelord.5746:

Check out the thief:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-udk3CEtc7E

Thieves can down people in 2 seconds flat… and there’s nothing you can do about it.

That seems highly useful. He’s going to fare extremely well in any fight which isn’t a 1v1, or if he has to fight more often than his pieced-together video shows you!
What does he do if a stray AE disables him? It’s not like there aren’t dozens of those flying around. That’s the fun with all those glass cannons, most of them never reach their target. Yet for some reason they enjoy losing 75% of the time (without standing a chance) and winning 25% of the time without the enemy having a chance more than anything more balanced in setup.

Golem Suit has 3 potential rather easy fixed:

• Remove the excessive delays on all it’s abilities. This would make it highly damaging, even though it would still be very restrictive.
• Give it full passive Stability while active. As it cannot revive players, the Guardian-Tome-issue wouldn’t exist with this.
• Make it last forever once summoned. This is the one I like the least, it’d still be very frail and weak, but at least it’d last.

They sadly don’t the get +33% duration from 10Illusions :S

Really? I mean in the team I currently work in we also do work on the bugfixes, but this is a temporary situation neither of us or the client likes. Separate support team is how it should be, including the bugfixers, and we do the enhancements and feature additions.

In which case there’s no need to have Moa, is there? If I kill someone in 2s, there’s only one thing I need: a nerf.

Levetty, when offered a solution, the wrong reaction is to then whine about that, too.

Or maybe they are just a conceptually much simpler class. Everyone knows what a warrior is about, take weapon, bash things over the head.

It’s easy to implement. No unique features to explore really, just stuff which hits people in the face. Even the rage-mechanic, back when WoW released something quite novel, pre-modelled how to work on the adrenaline-idea. The only novel idea in GW2’s warrior is the fully viable ranged loadout.
Likewise, Rangers, Elementalists, Necromancers, these are all tried and true concepts. Fans know what to expect, Devs know exactly what to do to meet those expectations. Years of previous work to take a look at.

OTOH, try a much more unique class like the Mesmer, especially given that the pure Debuffer role of GW1 is no longer usable since WoW already abolished the three non-stacking roles and now GW2 abolishes the other three.
So it’s blank slate, and everything has be constructed from the ground up.

It is. Confusion is different for sPvP from the rest of the game:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Confusion

The problem with our Shatters really is: How much of our potential do we want to be in Clones / Phantasms?
It’d be comparatively easy to make Clones the alpha and omega of our defence, and Pohantasms the same for our offence. That would then imply that Shatters would be extremely powerful effects (since they still need to be worth it).

But do we really want to be so dependent on the images?

Yeah, if only Shatter was my #1 attack, so this was actually comparable…

But usually the dev (as in, balance/content changes) and debugging (as in bugfixes) teams are separate.

In other words, the devs won’t fix our bugs because then their boss would be very angry at them. The bugfixing people won’t, once their Blocker- and Critical-bugs are closed. Although… do we have a critical bug right now? Don’t think so, only quite a few I’d classify High Priority.

F1 is weak if not focused on. If traited and supported by your build it is actually quite strong, especially considering you only need to produce a single Clone and then fire it.
F2 is so/so. It can apply 6 stacks of Confusion + 3 stacks of Vulnerability, but it’s rarely worth the 30s CD and the Clones lost. The problem here is more in the duration of the debuffs though, not the actual amount of existence.
F3 and F4? Weak? Hrm…
Especially since you can make F3 AE.

Don’t split them, there’s no need to. We have plenty currently unused abilities to boost PvE-centric to increase our PvE performance, there’s no indication a split in functionality would be necessary.

kraziefox.5697:

I play 10 levels on each Class, then swap to the next to get 10 levels & my Mesmer’s 10 levels takes twice as long as all the other classes, as she is so weak I have to be very careful on the battles I enter … have to rely on waiting for other players to come along to complete Skill Challenges (whereas all the other classes can solo most).

This is sorta confusing, because before the whinefest started the universal opinion on forums like gw2guru or reddit was that while Mesmers were slower at churning small mobs, we excel – and we do! – at soloing powerful targets since they never really get to hit us in the first place.
Skill challenges especially are quite a bit more difficult on my Engineer. And it’s not like they’re difficult on her, but on my Mesmer all I do is keep the clones and phantasms up and fire away. Replace any lost illusion, done.

Yes but GW1 was hardly “balanced”. It was well-balanced compared to say, the newly-released GW2 or WAR or anything like that (not sure I’d want to compare it with WoW with it’s continuous new-stuff→balance→new-stuff→balance cycle), but it wasn’t balanced.
Not that any RPG ever is.

I agree that their changes seem a bit random. The bugfixing might be separate people, fair enough, but while I guess they got statistical data on which skills get over-/under-used, I’d like to at least have an explanation of that.
As in: “The two utility phantasms are seeing massive over-use on people’s hotbars compared to other utility skills. To try alleviate this, we are experimenting with increasing the cooldown slightly, as per the following changes.”

It is kind of like when you kill a mob and the irritating snare that is put on you disappears as well….Oh wait it doesn’t. How odd.

And what about the snare on the mob you killed?

Yeah, but your preferences don’t actually matter when it comes to balancing the game, because they’re – as are mine, or anyone else’s – heavily biased.

That’s the thing with balance, and it was the same in WoW: “sob the other class gets loved all the time” <— this is said by all classes
Everyone always paints their own class as the poor, dev-hated loser, and some other FOTM class as the one the entire dev team plays.

Hence the only “proper” measure of class-balance if “whineflood”. Is everyone crying ~evenly? Good, balanced.

Don’t they produce the graphics effect on every movement of the sword? If yes, GS-using Asuras hooooooo \o/

To be honest, then the devs of Allods Online were simply… well… bad. Sorry.

As a developer, rule #1 would be: don’t listen to your playerbase.
Mind you, listen is the operative word there. Don’t let them tell you what to do, they’re incredibly biased, each and every single player, and the average doesn’t help either because it masks many important details (for a comparable issue, see average-FPS versus stutter-curves when comparing performance of PC components) and because of numerical inequality.

Anyhow, if the devs of Allods Online nerfed Psis because of the whining: they were bad devs. Period.

If ANet keeps nerfing us after the we are no longer better in sPvP than other classes (and/or ignore the WvW/PvE issues thereafter), then they’re bad devs. Period.

Doesn’t mean that they have to do that, tbh. Also means that if they are good devs they’ll read – or rather, let read – our comments, but use them more as a general pointer towards “what to check out”.
In other words, if someone screams “Nerf Mesmer Moa, kittenolol”, then the dev should get from that “Moa Morph, take a look”, without a “nerf” or “buff” or “change” in input. Just to check out the skill. Then he takes a look, doesn’t get what the fuss is about, reads that they’re calls for nerfs at home and shrugs thinking that without the bias, the skill read quite balanced. (example, this is not my actual opinion!)

Cayafas.8290:

And scepters – well – uh… I really want to like them, but dear god that weapon is just awful. Is there anything good about it at all?

Actually #2 and #3 are very powerful.
The problem is in #1, or rather, in it’s sluggishness.
As people have found out before – I think it’s listed in the bugthread now – the swapping to the next skill happens when the projectile impacts. This makes Scepter excrutiatingly slow at max-distance.

Try it from melee against a dummy or so → it’s not actually such a bad weapon.
Ofc, no one would use a Scepter if it were about melee range, so this still needs to be resolved.

I think if that were to be resolved, then Scepter would be quite ok. It’s clone-generation speed is still the best out of the weapons, so it’d give us more fodder for Shatters, although it has some minor issues with the Clones as well (“more” is ok as the sole attribute only if they spawn at range instead of in melee).

And to get back to the main point, yes, the Orr-spawn-rate can be annoying but I always thought it was intended to try make you group up. Independent of how easy it is to get through everything – because it is – it still makes it much more safer to go AFK and get a coffee or so if you have someone covering your back.

It makes Orr feel “more dangerous”.

And again I stress: in-game economy MUST be balanced for all professions.

Ok, then to demoralize you right away:
In-game economy will never be balanced for all classes. Whether Mesmers are the worst at farming or tomorrow farm thrice as fast as anyone else is irrelevant to the point, you will not – ever – get equal farming speed between classes.

As perfect balance is not possible in RPGs, and there always being plenty things needing tweaking which have larger issues than %-differences in farming speed, there is no use “wasting” dev time on something which needs a lot of time and lots and lots of iterations (and, if we are to help with it, QA before releasing the patch to us) for something providing a – comparatively – marginal effect.

Now ofc, you might not like your money worries being declared “marginal” an issue. Still, it helps to simply accept that RPGs cannot truly be balanced. Because so far no one has managed. So ofc it miiiight be possible, but empiric evidence tells us it isn’t.

If you are saying that Mesmers are meant to solely excel in PVP, then Anet has to split PVP and PVE abilities like they did in GW1 because it will never be balanced, and THAT is the fundamental truth of all class-based game design.

No I’m not saying that.
I am saying that there is an imbalance, yes. Surprise! (seriously, is anyone honestly surprised if a MMO is imbalanced? Especially in a sub-area of the game?)
Moreover, Mesmers – or any class – aren’t dysfunctional, so the balance is “ok-ish”. I also love how people are over-exaggerating their PvE problems. If you honestly can’t get gold in a DE as a Mesmer, I hate to break it to you, but the problem isn’t the class. It’s ok to accept that one isn’t a top player. Yes, we have to work a little bit harder to get gold, compare to a Warrior just facerolling through the bunch on WW-CD and getting gold. Fair enough, there needs to be a newbie-class, too.
But we aren’t falling apart, we’re not actually farming slowly (slower yes, but slower by a small amount).

P.S.:
lollie, I suspect you will now talk about how a Warrior or a Cleric could farm Kunark just as well as a Druid or Necro?
Yes, I know what I’m talking about. GW2 isn’t as well-balanced as WoW, but it is better balanced than WoW was when it was just released.

Define “consistent AoE” please.

Well, such a split isn’t necessarily bad – see how confusion is different between sPvP and the rest of the game right now – but it should be avoided whenever possible.

Yes, not all classes are exactly equal in all areas of the game. If this is a surprise, welcome to your first MMO, happy to have you on board.

(Sorry, but this starts to tick me off, people complain about it like this is anything but a fundamental truth of class-based game design.)

Yeah the weird thing is not that the armours are identical for males and females (no sexual dimorphism means there’s no need the race would have developed for this, so it seems sound that they might not have copied the concept from other races), but rather that the armours are 1-to-1 copies of other male skins.

A unique, genderless, armour design would make perfect sense for Asuras. But not simply using the male versions (although using the female ones would be just as wrong).

shrugs

I can’t say those changes have much of an effect in PvE, specifically. Now granted since I don’t use a Phantasm build, I don’t feel much of an impact at all – my previous setup with 3*Sword wouldn’t have felt any, actually, now I use a Staff but the reduced Armour-CD might actually come in handy.

I would prefer if Phantasms were pure utility (Disenchanter, Defender, Warden and Mage are sort-of utility already), and not a source of damage. That’d make them much easier to balance long-term.

This could be the same issue as the one affecting Shatter CDs, they’re only getting reduced by 23% from the 30 points in Illusions.

But Plavski, we are very strong. Yes we have stuff we need fixed, but were you honestly not expecting any nerfs in the very near future? :S

I would advise anyone complaining to actually play the changes first. Chances are, you won’t notice.

(edit)
I also find it somewhat hilarious that first everyone complains how we are overpowered, then we see an insane surge of new Mesmers (everyone rerolling, the FOTM-train is going full speed ahead), and now those very people are complaining that Mesmers are getting nerfed.
And, as in every previous MMORPG we once again see: Don’t choose your class for power, choose them for style and gameplay. Balance is in constant flux, you shouldn’t base your class choice around it.

This patch ticked me off… I run a phantasm build and RARELY shatter, so most of my damage comes from phantasms – phantasms that get freaking one shot in every single dungeon – and now it’s going to be even HARDER to pull off my damage? Are you freaking kidding me? Can someone PLEASE explain the reasoning behind this?

This is guesstimation, but the changes might be to differentiate a “perma” Phantasm build more from a shatter-ready Phantasm-heavy setup.

I agree with mdong, I don’t get what the big problem is. Sure we have our problems, we but we’re doing great.

Wastrel’s Punishment is an interesting idea, but more Adept than Grandmaster level. Here’s my idea for Grandmaster traits…

First, overall design idea:

• Each line has one GM Trait which enhances our Illusions (and normally also their Shatters) in a line-fitting way.
• Each line also has one GM Trait which enhances our non-Illusion gameplay in a line-befitting fashion.
• I consider the Mesmer themed around the concept of someone who supports the offense by distracting and debilitating opponents. As a result I see Domination less as a line focused around damage, but around binary debuffs (Cripple / Vulnerability and such). I see Dueling as our main damage dealing line, and I’d rework the trait-lines to more clearly focus on their goals – see Elementalists or Rangers or Engineers.

Domination

• All your Illusions and all your Shatter abilities cause extra damage to enemies, as a percentage on your Power. Distortion will grant you Reflection instead of dealing damage. This merges the Distortion grants Reflection trait!
• All attacks done against inactive targets cause 3 stacks of Vulnerability for 5 seconds. Enemies are considered inactive if they are not actively channeling or casting an ability.

Dueling

• Conjuring an Illusion against a target will make existent Illusions switch targets to the new one. This only applies to Illusions created from hotbar abilities. _This means this won’t trigger from 25% HP stealth or dodge clones.
• When you suffer a critical hit, you gain Might for 6 seconds. If you reach 5 stacks you lose the stacks but gain Fury for 4 seconds.

Chaos

• If your Clones are shattered or destroyed by enemies, they will randomly cause Cripple, 3 stacks of Vulnerability or Weakness to nearby enemies. Phantasms will cause Burning, 3 stacks of Bleeding or 3 stacks of Confusion. This merges the on-clone-death trait!
• Every time you are afflicted by a condition, you gain a random boon.

Inspiration

• Your Phantasms ignore Shatter-commands, unless there are no Clones remaining.
• As long as you have at least one Mantra charge on any Mantra remaining, you and allies around you have a chance to gain Regeneration when damaged.

Illusion

• Shattering Illusions produces the effect on you as well. I’m keeping this one since it’s sort-of the defining part of Illusions right now.
• You can have a fourth Illusion active, however you cannot have a fourth Phantasm at the same time, and Clones will still replace a third Phantasm if available.

Obviously this would all need tons of number balancing.

In sPvP I’d agree with the Charr (or rather Norn = bulky, illusions confuse people a lot) vs Asura (small, hard to read) reasoning.

In WvW, racial skills can matter a lot more, however.
For example Avatar of Melandru and Hounds can be important in defending or chasing in smallest-scale encounters, while Asura golems tend to be… well… no. Especially the suit. Don’t underestimate an AE 2s Daze onto a freshly breached door zerg as a Norn, either. It’s usually suicide, but it usually also makes the defenders stomp the entire attacker force.

Yes, this change would make GS nearly useless in1v1.

I agree with Thebacklash, not all 8 professions need to work universally for all players. Mesmer works fine, or rather, this specific problem really shouldn’t be on the table until the long list of bugs has been resolved and rebalancing of existent traits/abilities has been done.

It’s quite alright if a specific profession feels wrong for you. It just might be.

True, every elite should in theory feel as powerful as Moa, Time Warp or Supply Crate. Some definitely got the “cool” nailed, Fiery Greatsword, Tornado, Lich Form, Spirit of Renewal, Dagger Storm. So what we’d need is for those to get more powerful, and the others to get more powerful and more visually or conceptually nice.

Timeslice.9027:

If you can’t see how ridiculously OP Moa Morph is then that’s just sad.

And again, how often in an entire day of playing WvW or an entire day of PvE was it overpowered?
tPvP isn’t the entire game. Might be Moa needs a nerf there, it needs a substantial buff outside of it.

Seems useless in PvP, considering how rare small-scale encounters are. The most use you get out of it when assaulting an otherwise undefended or only defending by 1-2 players Supply Camp. But then, you wouldn’t need Moa Morph for that at all, and you could argue MI is better in case there are significant defenders there and you want to turn around before they get a target clicked.

What I would rather have on the Downed (not the drowned, but gimme a sec) state is that #3 is a copy of the #2 skill which creates a clone a distance away, then makes me invisible.

So I have both versions, I teleport away / the clone teleports away. Used well this should be able to confuse enemies which one is the real one.

As for the Drowning state, this would work much less well. I’d like a Clone which swims towards air here, so that I can swim at a different angle and it’s not immediately obvious which is which.

30pt Dueling: Charged Power
Discharging a Mantra grants you Might. Charging a Mantra grants you Might and Fury.

20pt Dueling: The Clone and Mantra game
When charging a Mantra, the animation will be played by a random of your active clones instead of yourself. You yourself show no animation.

30pt Chaos: Unstable Energy
Discharging a Mantra grants yourself a random boon (MoH, MoR, MoC) or applies a random condition to your target (MoP, MoC).

30pt Inspiration: Healing Trance
While having at least one Mantra charges, a damaged nearby friend will gain 3 seconds of Regeneration every 10s. If charging a Mantra, you also gain Regeneration for the duration of the cast.

20pt Illusions: Defensive Shatter
Using Distortion or Diversion refills one charge of any still-charged Mantra.

Mantra builds are fairly powerful, but you need the traits. That’s my main issue with Mantras, too, they feel soooo marginalized without their traits.

I’d prefer if Mantras were a lot more powerful baseline, most traits for them removed, in fact each traitline has one trait which enhances all Mantras in a specific, trait-fitting way. Say Inspirations makes Mantras apply Regeneration to yourself, or Chaos applies a random boon to yourself (MoC, MoR and MoH) or a random condition to the enemy (MoD or MoP).

The idea of a perpetual Clone + Stealth sounds awesome. It’d be useful in PvE (deaggro every 3s), sPvP (good 1v1 confusion potential due to the sheer number of clones generated) and WvW (target lock breaks).

Only problem I could foresee would be that it’d work amazingly well with on-clone-destroy traits, especially once you have 2 Phantasms out. Tilts the worth of traits a fair amount.

EasymodeX.4062:

Mesmers obviously need a signet with 10% passive runspeed!

True! Then we could just remove them for everyone and increase base out-of-combat runspeed by 10%-15%.

I like people like hackks, without them the posts would be much more serious and developers might start actually reading them. The way it is, no chance the whining spewed out will reach them, since it’s mostly illiterate LOLing.

Anyhow, another elite would be nice. Moa just doesn’t fit in, there’s no other transforms in our class setup. Sure we have dazes, but Moa isn’t a proper daze either.

A more fitting thing would be an elite Mantra, an elite Phantasm skill, something summoning X Clones at the same time, portable Portal, PBAE Blink, Echo (an upgaded Arcane Thievery, after all), such stuff.

I suspect that if the iMage can hit 3 targets, then it’s damage is sadly balance around having 3 Confusion / Retaliation active per hit, meaning you’d need an AE situations. Much like iDisenchanter seems balanced around hitting multiple friendlies.

Pistol Main hand, in turn for that Scepter off hand? That’d be quite unique.

Out of curiosity, how many targets does the iMage’s attack jump over? 3?