Guild Wars 2

Craft the account bound HoT legendary precursors.

Buy the core precursors off the TP.

I wish that Anet had not wasted the dev time with the collection quests for original precursors – the extra dev time could have been used to finish off a full new set of legendaries instead of having to axe them as they did recently.

Instead we have superfluous/unnecessary collections for old precursors and only 4 new legendaries…

AB is more fun than DS for me though.

I’ve been running DS a lot this past week to level masteries for the Order backpiece collection and it eventually becomes tedious, ploughing through the countless mobs. AB on the other hand feels more easygoing and fun with the variety of events that go on.

The other extremely annoying things with DS are the insane amount of bags and green/blue gear that accumulates in your inventory… salvaging and opening all that rubbish is by far the worst thing in the game. I absolutely hate this bags within bags and drown players in kitten gear to salvage all the time. To make things worse, MouseKeys decided not to work when I has to open around 200 bags yesterday and salvage all the kitten that is inside. >:(
It’s utterly bullkitten design to have to sort through that much kitten in your inventory.

I do not intend to touch DS ever again beyond the final hero point I need after finishing Ley Line Gliding, unless there’s some gear/stat locked behind it that I would lime in the future.

At least with AB the chests are a lot more user friendly and the the environment more pleasing to look at/interact with.

This would be so great for consuming individual foods – as said, you have to buy the food in the first place so it would be a great quality of life change. Just have a stacking limit – ie, “you are full” at 5 stacks or something.

But of course more extreme limitations must be put in place for Feasts.

By the time the next expansion comes I’m sure it’ll be normal to have to choose one elite spec and two core specs for every build.

At that point they may as well make the elite spec slot fixed/mandatory.

Unfortunately I can’t see this being undone from here.

But it’s the same with every class – just how it goes at the moment, we can’t expect much from the small patches in between the quarterly patches.

At least this is inconsequential for anyone who doesn’t use Moa (I personally rarely if ever use moa).

I think that come the next expansion, we’re going down the route of every build must use one elite traitline and two core trait lines. It only seems odd now because we only have one elite spec each.

A shame, but I can’t see it changing.

It won’t dissuade any of the whining though.

Xyonon.3987:

I’m not a pvp player but did the last patch not at least give precognition a chance for a comeback?

It’s still bad unfortunately.

^What about offhand sword block or scepter block? I don’t think those two weapons should be negatively affected if Mental Defence was on evade only.

3 illusions is ridiculous – it’s perfectly fine with 2.

Shatter spam is due to a combination of many factors – but on it’s own Illusionary Reversion is not a problem.

Shield 4 benefits more from all the phantasm/illusion traits than any other phantasm skill on any other weapon. There’s so many – Persistence of Memory, Illusionsists Celerity, Chronophantasma, Mental Defence, Alacrity (also generated by iAvengers…)…

The synergy with Shield 4 completely eclipses every other weapon – particularly every other offhand weapon, but also iWarlock/Zerker.

If those traits are nerfed, every other weapon will suffer badly.

The options are either reducing Shield down to the level of every other phantasm skill in the game – and I agree that removing the iAvenger from Deja Vu would be a good step – or improving all the other phantasm skills to be on the same level as Shield 4.

Personally I think every other phantasm skill needs to be brought up to the level of Shield 4 with an active effect) and then traits like Chronophantasma and Persistence of Memory and so on can be looked at.

But otherwise I agree that Shield 4 can be looked at, to encourage use of other weapons.

5 min time limit, 2 lives each?

Although not a class mechanic, I understand how you feel when suffering through Blink pathing issues and the old iLeap.

“It’s nice to see you.”

To which I always mentally reply – “To see you, nice!”

rebellion.2473:

I guess some backpieces would lose the flavor if all could change into same stats

That’s why I personally am only asking for a reset om the ones that are stat selectable in the first place when you craft them, such as Mawdrey.

Heh, I wouldn’t mind this – because it wouldn’t only be affecting Mesmer.

Doggie.3184:

No because they are afraid of easy-access condition backpieces/trinkets. It’ll apparently open up a black hole and consume the universe if too many people get a hold of Viper/Carrion sets.

Resetting stat selectable backpieces via some sort of recipe is not going to do this because those stats are unavailable for majority of ascended backpieces when you craft it anyway.

For reference, these backpieces only:
There with Yakkington: A Traveler’s Tale
Bough of Melandru
Chaos of Lyssa
Light of Dwayna
Shadow of Grenth
Mawdrey
Luminate’s Backplate
Lightbringer’s Pack
Magister’s Pack
Warmaster’s Pack
Finite Result
Upper Bound
Quiver of a Thousand Arrows
__ Tempered Spinal Blades

Now the only problem is those Raid backpieces because they are the only backpieces with access to a wider variety of stats – but then just give them a reset recipe as well. I don’t see a problem with that.

Bumping this because I think it is something that must happen.

At least for the stat selectable backpieces (not the ones with fixed stats, but all the god backpieces, order backpieces, mawdrey and so on…) – there has to be a way either through a recipe or mystic forge to reset them to a statless state.

Wow that guy was salty. :o

Yes of course but as said, not like Courtyard…

Vsevedzna.6527:

Well, op..
Do you need something?
You got gold, right?
But seriously, don’t ask for less repetitive dialogue, or you’ll break the game.
And if you break it, I break you.

:D I properly loled right there.

The comedy factor of repetitive dialogue is worth keeping.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Chaos armor? Sounds good. I always wanted to be a Beacon in the Dark. :P

I’ll need a mini Skritt that follows me around, staring at me saying “Ooohh. SHINY!” To make the look complete though.

Even better – I want to play as a glowing skritt, who is so shiny that all other shinies look not so shiny.

I would be interested to see calculations of the difference between lower condi damage but longer duration of Trailblazer and higher condi damage but lower duration of Dire, and to find out where the sweet spot is.

But also it is difficult to take into account how many skill activations for confusion ticks or how much running around for torment ticks.

I personally prefer frontloaded condi damage for the reason that most competent players would cleanse and not spam skills/run around like crazy when under torment/confusion. But for PvE I have no idea which would yield the higher overall damage.

In combat mobility is very high.

Flat landspeed out of combat is only decent thanks to recent changes – Focus, Signet of Inspiration and the 25% movement speed in Chrono.

Otherwise without runes (traveler, Centaur, air, etc…) flat landspeed was bad.

Levetty.1279:

I vote remove Moa and replace it with consume plasma.

You know, I’d actually take this. Providing it is on a very low cooldown for an elite.

lol that was very funny! xD

Great job and great video.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Curunen.8729:

This might sound weird but I find Ele difficult to play – I think zerker ele builds take a lot of skill.

This is what I don’t understand when I read posts like this.

Power ele and thief are ultimately broken. They take as much skill as any other broken bottom tier profession.

Thief is kind of okay to play if there werent so many random condis and ccs and even passive damages flying around.

Good players prevail with these classes not because of the classes themselves but simply because they outclass their opponent.

These days, thief 1on1 is pretty much who’s going to make more consecutive successive crits. And playing warrior 1on1 is pretty much more about tricking and playing the opponent rather than being mechanically superior.

In case there is any misunderstanding, yes, I do agree that thief and power ele and warrior currently are difficult to play but that’s only because they are poorly balanced to the point of being broken.

Shoutbow warrior was difficult to play but an average shoutbow was almost just as good with the silly celestial amulet.

Hambow was pretty easy to pickup, most effects came from firing off weapon abilities anyway.

There’s certainly skill involved but if someone is going to be good with thief/ele/war/power mes … well lets not kid ourselves, they’re going to be good with other professions as well. They have the necessary map awareness and knowledge when and where to intervene to tilt the battle in their favor.

One on one with those professions between average and good there’s basically hardly any difference, beside RNG (crits)

Well then if we go by that, it’s impossible to quantify which classes take the most or least skill because there are always some extremely difficult (ie broken/bad) builds on all classes.

You can throw together all sorts of extremely challenging traits and weapons to handicap yourself – even mesmer has this. Could try playing x/Focus + x/Pistol, zerker Domination/Duelling/Chaos Chaotic Interruption/Power Block with a full bar of mantras and using Harmonius Mantras.

So I don’t see what you’re getting at given it has to be subjective.

This might sound weird but I find Ele difficult to play – I think zerker ele builds take a lot of skill.

I quite like it.

Now we need mainhand focus for some classes for dual wield Anomalies.

If you’re on eotm at least take Focus and Greatsword – have some fun punting enemies over the edge.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Quaman.9167:

I feel like mesmer is the next class that is gonna get rekt by Anet. Sure, rev’s and ele’s are also both broken in their own ways, but there seems to be way more complaints about mesmer around the community. Not to say that I blame anyone, double moa is broken.

If Mesmer gets rekt next by Anet, nothing will change. Mesmer mains will still bring their mes, people will still get rekt, and the forums will still continue to QQ about Mesmers.

It’s the way it’s always been regardless of how many mesmers were in torny teams or not XD

Nail on head.

ICD is a cheap/lazy/bandaid solution that would make those traits really clunky and so I firmly disagree to it. If a player wants to blow all their shatter cooldowns in sequence to spike damage or Condi application, they should be allowed to – because the shatter cooldowns themselves limit this burst.

The interaction which should be looked at is Shield 4/Persistence of Memory/Mental Defence/Chronohantasma.

Those four traits together allow for insane back to back phantasm generation and chain shatters as well as having an extremely low cooldown due to synergy.

However now try playing something like Sword/Pistol + Greatsword and then use iReversion, Persistence of Memory, Mental Defence and Chronophantasma… you should notice that those traits are NOT overpowered with any weapon combination other than Shield. In fact they are perfectly fine. iReversion requires two illusions as it is.

So I firmly believe neither Chronophantasma, iReversion, or Mental Defence need to be touched – they should be left alone unless a huge trait rework is done on mesmer and every single class (which I doubt will happen any time soon).

No instead what should be looked at is Shield 4 – it is the only "phantasm"skill with a fantastic active effect and the ability to spawn two phantasms (three including the idefender) benefitting from cooldown synergy from several traits, allowing it to cool down so fast that you can generate a rapid supply of phantasms. Which in turn also allows effortless proccing of iReversion.

Either Shield 4 needs to.be limited to one single phantasm (remove the spawn on Deja Vu) or something else needs to be done to balance that weapon.

Unless every single other phantasm skill on every other weapon gets a similar active effect, then those traits should not be touched.

Any nerfs to Chronophantasma, iReversion, Persistence of Memory or Mental Defence will only force more people to use Shield because other weapons will be made much weaker. I personally do not want to be forced to have to play Shield…

Edit – as a side not to the OPs comments about “passive play” – barely anything on mesmer is passive. I wish people would think before throwing out the word passive at anything they don’t like… even Shield has to actively block in order to gain access to Deja Vu.

Yeah I agree it was annoying doing the Chaos Crystal Cavern this evening.

Had to be really careful to tap jump lightly incase of accidently opening the glider and missing the jump.

Azukas.1426:

Curunen.8729:

Azukas.1426:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Azukas.1426:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PU-condi-mez/first#post5384202

Ok been away for awhile just kinda doing stuff IRL. Now while I was gone I found this thread where people were actually defending PU condi mesmers in WvW.

Wait WHAT no sane person who really cares about balance is going to defend PU condi mesmer!! Well I then notice those same names defending PU condi are the EXACT same ppl defending Condi Shatter here.

Thanks and let’s continue the cheering for how great we mesmers have it!!!

1) You’re comparing WvW 9 months ago to sPvP now. Unless you’re really going to make an argument that PU Condi was ever anything other than a cheesy noob-stomper in sPvP. At best.

2) PU Condi was good at two things: Winning 1v1s (if the opponent was foolish enough to not just leave), and escaping outnumbered fights. It ruled WvW roaming, except for being slower than sin, but it didn’t actually change the balance of WvW that much, since solo roaming… I mean, come on.

3) If you were losing matches to PU Condi in sPvP, that’s just an indication that you’re a bad sPvPer. It was an excellent duelist that couldn’t effectively hold a point, couldn’t meaningfully contribute to teamfights. It could stomp people who didn’t know how to dodge or cleanse, that’s about it. If that was you, that… explains a lot of your current angst.

4) Maybe it’s the same people, because they’re the people who know something about this profession. Just a thought.

5) “how great we mesmers have it” — You really spend a lot of time emphasizing how you’re totally, really, a real-life mesmer main. I mean, I have no reason to disbelieve you but… If someone can’t go an hour without spontaneously declaring “I’m human,” I start wondering if maybe they’re a semi-sentient colony of spiders wearing a fleshsuit, you know?

I think you missed the point of my post. My point is the same people defending that build are the same ones who are defending this build, and they are the EXACT same people who defended Chronobunker.

See the pattern?

Heck one of them even tries to use PvE balance to argue for leaving mesmers alone ROFLMAO.

Again we all owe Anet an apology and should be embarrassed for the behavior on this sub forum.

I take issue with this poor generalisation.

I personally never defended PU condi and never defended Chronobunker, and didn’t like playing either. Please don’t generalise and apply inaccurate statements to the people in this forum.

However as much as I’m not totally fond of shatter spam playstyle right now, I am fully defending the current condi shatter.

The only thing I don’t defend is
1. CS+Moa.
2. Persistence of Memory/Shield 4/Chronophantasma synergy.

1. is a case of preventing elite skill use with CS
2. is a case of looking at Shield 4, because any nerf to PoM or Cp will harm other weapons that are not Shield and force everyone to use Shield even more because everything else will suck. Unless every single phantasm skill has an additional active effect like Shield block, however I don’t see that happening any time soon…

Everything else is fine.

LOL I think you need to rethink your statements.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/showposts/Curunen-8729/1

Thanks for your support mate.

Eh? You don’t make sense – if you want to waste your time searching my post history, go ahead, but at least find something concrete…

If you go back far enough you may find posts where I hated on condi bunker builds in general and preferred power shatter…

Doesn’t change anything.

Oh I would like to see the extra bounce on mirror blade restored.

And then give some incentive to run Domination or Duelling over Inspiration/Illusions…

Some small thematic condi cleanse would be a start.

StickerHappy.8052:

Kinda embarrassing that Frostball is the one explaining.
I bet half of the people here do not even know who he is. :/

I’m sure they are aware.

In any case it is still one person’s point of view. Recall Helseth’s comments on scepter torment auto.

Azukas.1426:

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Azukas.1426:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PU-condi-mez/first#post5384202

Ok been away for awhile just kinda doing stuff IRL. Now while I was gone I found this thread where people were actually defending PU condi mesmers in WvW.

Wait WHAT no sane person who really cares about balance is going to defend PU condi mesmer!! Well I then notice those same names defending PU condi are the EXACT same ppl defending Condi Shatter here.

Thanks and let’s continue the cheering for how great we mesmers have it!!!

1) You’re comparing WvW 9 months ago to sPvP now. Unless you’re really going to make an argument that PU Condi was ever anything other than a cheesy noob-stomper in sPvP. At best.

2) PU Condi was good at two things: Winning 1v1s (if the opponent was foolish enough to not just leave), and escaping outnumbered fights. It ruled WvW roaming, except for being slower than sin, but it didn’t actually change the balance of WvW that much, since solo roaming… I mean, come on.

3) If you were losing matches to PU Condi in sPvP, that’s just an indication that you’re a bad sPvPer. It was an excellent duelist that couldn’t effectively hold a point, couldn’t meaningfully contribute to teamfights. It could stomp people who didn’t know how to dodge or cleanse, that’s about it. If that was you, that… explains a lot of your current angst.

4) Maybe it’s the same people, because they’re the people who know something about this profession. Just a thought.

5) “how great we mesmers have it” — You really spend a lot of time emphasizing how you’re totally, really, a real-life mesmer main. I mean, I have no reason to disbelieve you but… If someone can’t go an hour without spontaneously declaring “I’m human,” I start wondering if maybe they’re a semi-sentient colony of spiders wearing a fleshsuit, you know?

I think you missed the point of my post. My point is the same people defending that build are the same ones who are defending this build, and they are the EXACT same people who defended Chronobunker.

See the pattern?

Heck one of them even tries to use PvE balance to argue for leaving mesmers alone ROFLMAO.

Again we all owe Anet an apology and should be embarrassed for the behavior on this sub forum.

I take issue with this poor generalisation.

I personally never defended PU condi and never defended Chronobunker, and didn’t like playing either. Please don’t generalise and apply inaccurate statements to the people in this forum.

However as much as I’m not totally fond of shatter spam playstyle right now, I am fully defending the current condi shatter.

The only thing I don’t defend is
1. CS+Moa.
2. Persistence of Memory/Shield 4/Chronophantasma synergy.

1. is a case of preventing elite skill use with CS
2. is a case of looking at Shield 4, because any nerf to PoM or Cp will harm other weapons that are not Shield and force everyone to use Shield even more because everything else will suck. Unless every single phantasm skill has an additional active effect like Shield block, however I don’t see that happening any time soon…

Everything else is fine.

It’s weird they remove that and then go ahead and add things like Mercenary.

I think the whole pvp amulet stat system could do with another overhaul, including normalising 3 and 4 stat amulets and providing more customisation either via jewels or something new.

No hylek love? :o

Anyway Skritt are by far the best and most awesome race in gw2.

kitten , I want to make a playable skritt so badly…

Erm I think you’ll find many here are in favour of preventing Elites with CS anyway.

Haste.8610:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

They are still decent and are arguably the top choice in condi mesmer roaming (which I presume is what you asked since perplexity has always been terrible in WvW zergs). But that’s simply because there isn’t any particularly good runes for condi mesmer anyway.

I’m actually not seeing nightmare on the AH, is that a spvp only rune?

It is available from Twilight Arbor dungeon gear – you can get it through the pvp reward track and buy with tokens or run the dungeon.

Bifrost is hands down my favourite legendary and fits perfectly on mesmer.

The white/rainbow auto attack projectiles are nice.

Use whatever you like tbh – Tormenting, Perplexity, Undead, Scavenging, Nightmare, Berserker.

I actually like using Antitoxin.

Pride.1734:

You can say that its not alot but lets look for how long mesmers can acutally facetank.

blured frenzy: 2,5 s invul on 12 s cd
shield 4 : 3 secs block on 24 secs cd
Distortion 3 secs invul
Double distortion with kontinuum split: another 3 secs
tripple distortion with signet of illusion another 3 secs

assuming you start with blured frenzy and use a decent clone rotation, you can ignore attacks thrown at you for 17 seconds. The best thing is only 3 secs are block. the rest is complete invul.

Well then focus your argument against what is causing the issue:
1. Continuum Split
2. Shield 4

Those are the only two things that should be looked at. Blurred Frenzy is perfectly fine – any nerf to it will also severely harm the little defence of a Sword/x (where x is Pistol, Focus or Torch) plus Greatsword power build, therefore it shouldn’t be touched. The cooldown is already more than enough for a rooted evade – it is only with alacrity and in combination with Shield 4 does your problem arise.

Likewise with Distortion – on its own it is perfectly fine.

Now, Continuum Split is the obvious source of many of the current issues, and I’m not about to suggest another solution to the many people have already done, although I agree it can be looked at.

Shield 4 is mainly due to the insane synergy with both Persistence of Memory and Chronophantasma. The difficulty here is any nerf to Persistence of Memory or Chronophantasma will do more harm to builds NOT using Shield. I suggest quite simply that
1. Increase Echo of Memory block duration to 2 seconds and
2. Deja Vu should be a single block and not spawn a phantasm.

But again there are other (and probably better) solutions. But any nerf should be to Shield 4 rather than either of those traits.

In any case it is still active defence, and anyway this is kind of offtopic.

The only legit answer in here is Phantasmal Defender from Mental Defence.

There is no other raw damage reduction outside of Protection, which is only going to maybe proc on chaos armour in the meta Inspiration/Illusions/Chrono build if lucky (if the Mesmer takes Chaos traitline then there is more access to protection).

There is NO other passive damage mitigation.

Everything else is active – Blurred Frenzy, Shield 4, Distortion… yeah actually that’s it, there is nothing else. EDIT – I forgot about RNG aegis in chaos storm… but that’s luck and on a long cool down.

Keep an eye out for the illusion of defence buff on the mesmer – once they’ve done a few opening shatters, the initial iDefender is usually gone for some time depending on alacrity. This is a good time to burst because other than the luck of this phantasm, despite what people say mesmer cannot facetank damage.

Other solution is cleave the illusions.

Generally at the start of a fight the iDefender will spawn on the first successful evade or block, so you need to be a bit patient if not able to cleave them away. Either that or overload the mesmer with enough damage to kill the iDefender.

ResJudicator.7916:

Elites + Csplit is honestly the only real problem. Mesmer is strong in 1v1, but relatively weak in teamfights outside of moa+csplit. So decoupling elites from csplit would narrow the mesmer’s role in games.

Most everything else is a L2P issue. The mesmer’s “get out of jail free” cards are all based on tempo, which you can interrupt. For example, the mesmer relies heavily on shield-blocks and blurred frenzy to buy enough time for other defensive skills and shatters to come off CD. If you disrupt the chain, you can shut down the mesmer. And many classes have the skills to disrupt this chain: necro staff5, DH F1, engie slick shoes, ele shocking aura, rev shiro port + staff5, thief basi venom, druid smokescale knockdown.

The “get out of jail free” cards you’re thinking of can all be counterplayed. You can interrupt signet of illusion (which has one of the longest cast times of any skill in the game, at 1.25 seconds). If he’s covering with distortion, then that means he’s been saving that skill the whole fight up until this point, which means you were bad at applying pressure. You can counterplay Csplit because you know where the mesmer will be when the timer runs out, so you can position yourself to put down a lot of burst right then. Or just take advantage of the Csplit to neut the point (mesmer can’t contest in Csplit).

If you try to beat a mesmer through attrition, it will take forever. If you’re thoughtful about skill usage, you can down a mesmer quickly in a +1 situation, and you can probably down most of the average mesmers in 1v1s, too.

Most sensible post, well written.

In addition, without these “get out of jail free cards”, mesmer can still be killed very fast, regardless of build. You cannot facetank damage on a mesmer, you need to use get out of jail free cards to stay alive.

The only single thing that needs changing is preventing CSplit on Elite skills. That’s it.

Loboling.5293:

One last thing, a lot of people (myself included) consider fighting mesmer to be the least fun fight in the game. However, the problem is made much worse when you get two mesmers or three (especially if they look the same). I hate any meta where mesmers have large presence. I like having a few of them around, but they simply siphon fun away when their numbers increase. (Funny considering mesmer is all about clones, but it just gets annoying seeing 10 characters who look alike. Focusing a target is a pain.

So this is what it really boils down to, and I’d guess this is the case for all the people who aren’t happy with mesmer.

Funny because I love fighting against enemy mesmers almost as much as I love playing one. Even if I’m playing a different class (eg melee ranger) I still enjoy fighting against mesmers.

I find fighting against necros to be the most boring thing in the game – it’s as boring as pve with their ridiculously large health pool and no interesting combat dynamics – simply have to kite in and out and chip away at the bullet sponge… I hate it if I see 4 or more necros on the enemy team because I know it will be a long and tedious game.
I also fing fighting Druids to be boring, again because of their insane sustain. In fact any fight that devolves into chipping away at a lot of sustain is boring.

That’s why I used to love fighting against thief as the old power shatter when thief had the advantage – because it was actually fun with all the evasion/blinking and other dynamic combat. Not boring like things with oversized health pools and healing.

At least mesmers still melt fast when focused, that has not changed.

Funny, different people enjoying different things like that.

Katoh.4069:

Yea also thf getting resistance on the steal from Mesmer. Maybe this shut then down little more now

Yeah I forgot the consume plasma change.

Well at least it’s good to see a productive thread rather than the other incessant whining.

I haven’t had a chance to play properly since the patch due to being in the middle of the week but on that note would Thief have some potential with cleansing torment on withdraw?

As this point I seriously would be happy to see Anet delete moa and make portal an elite skill or F5 for base mesmer.

At least then the class balance can be looked at objectively, without judgement being clouded by two gimmicks.