Guild Wars 2

I’m also believing it will either be a component in making the 2nd gen legendary greatsword or one handed sword.

LOL OP, great choices! xD

Especially Titanium, Heal the World, Shatter Me and Yesterday. Bang on perfect!

Ah interesting to see you’re using sword/x as well.

@DeathReign – Phase Retreat is still godlike in the pvp maps (and tbh that single skill carries Staff as a weapon). If Staff didn’t have Phase Retreat then yeah, Scepter/x Sword/x would be better, but anyway.
Also Chaos Storm is (IMO) more useful than Tides of Time when it comes to ally support (ie preventing stomps/resses and so on, especially on point.
Finally although Staff AA is pretty weak, it is still “AoE” through bouncing and this is useful vs multiple opponents, unlike Scepter’s single target AA.

Staff 4 is kitten now, so that definitely needs a buff, along with AA burn duration.

What they already said.

A few powerful utilities hide how weak the foundation of the class really is. “Veil/Moa/Portal/Alacrity”-bot. That’s what it boils down to.

Power shatter is astonishingly kitten, certainly the worst it has ever been (not helped by other classes’ elite specs still being brokenly OP), nevermind many other builds just not being good enough. Condi may be a “fad” right now, but it’s still pretty weak when analysed.

Yes they may just continue to nerf (if the trend of the last 3 years is anything to go by) and not compensate, but on the flipside I doubt certain areas will be buffed/fixed until certain other things are dealt with.

Xyonon.3987:

Portal to be attackable? o.o Ofc for PvE 95% dmg reduction…

Where did anyone say that? 0.o

Being on F keys wouldn’t be changing the skill itself. They don’t have to all be shatters.

Quadox.7834:

Put moa or portal on F5 but only for normal mesmer (not chrono). How about it.

Interesting idea.

I do believe Portal should be somewhere else than a utility slot – so either make it an elite or make it an F5 for base mesmer. It doesn’t really fit glamours at all, so the F5 idea sounds nice, especially because Chrono is thematically different.

Moa can stay as an elite though, but I think half duration on a ~90-120s cooldown would be nice.

musu.9205:

Curunen.8729:

Good because personally I’m fed up with the entire “raison d’etre” of Mesmer in pvp revolving around these two skills.

It’ll expose how weak the rest of the class is for the balance team.

honestly i dont like moa myself.

but for portal ,its a good designed skill ,it opens up more strategies . deeper game play is what gw2 needs .

Anet just failed to balance

Yeah I’m sorry to have come across so strongly.

I do like Portal and agree it opens up high skill play. I just don’t like mesmers being “portal bots” akin to “veil bots” in wvw.

Good because personally I’m fed up with the entire “raison d’etre” of Mesmer in pvp revolving around these two skills.

It’ll expose how weak the rest of the class is for the balance team.

musu.9205:

Curunen.8729:

I’d say:

1. Halve the duration of moa to ~5s on a 90s cooldown in pvp and,
2. Swap Time Warp with Portal, making Time Warp a regular utility Glamour and put Portal back on a 90s cooldown as an elite skill and reduce the duration of Time warp to ~7s with a 90s cooldown.
3. Make F5 not work with elites.

1.if you guys hate moa so much , rework is much betetr than nerfing it to 5s on 90s cd ,lets say after that it will be a trash skill since it is only used to kill tank build in team fight .5s moa with skill5 evade its 4s for a kill . worse than engi toolbelt skill which is 120s but aoe 3s moa duration which only has 1/2 s cast time ,also much harder to see the animation on engi than mes .

2.you know the concept : if something isnt broken , dont fix it .

3.if f5 doesnt work with elite ,mes elites need a massive cd reduce .current cd especially timewrap was this freaking long partly due to chrono (also glamour CDR trait doesnt reduce timewrap cd )

speak about this, i like how anet always refused to split skills but only made special sets of rule towards mesmer lol

in this thread you can say by making mes skills with special rules

,anet did prove that this way noobs do get confused in this very thread lol

Oh you miss my point – by the way I’m a die hard mesmer (check post history). So I’m not suggesting those changes from an external viewpoint. Actually I have no personal feelings about moa – I pretty much never use it (not being on an organised team) and don’t really care if an enemy uses it.

My point is those changes I suggested will force other areas of mesmer in desperate need of fixing/buffing to be fixed. For example mirror blade bounce, staff auto, phantasm skills, etc (way too much to list).

As long as Portal and Moa remain as they are where they are, their very existence carries the role of any mesmer (other than that short time of chronobunker) in pvp and hides any other problems with the class.

Edit: also I know that TW isn’t on the usual glamour cooldown reduction – maybe my wording wasn’t clear, I believe swapping it with Portal would be a beneficial impact for the class and allow other changes to take place.

I’d say:

1. Halve the duration of moa to ~5s on a 90s cooldown in pvp and,
2. Swap Time Warp with Portal, making Time Warp a regular utility Glamour and put Portal back on a 90s cooldown as an elite skill and reduce the duration of Time warp to ~7s with a 90s cooldown.
3. Make F5 not work with elites.

Did you have Chronophantasma traited?

That is a source of horrible buzzing until you shatter them once and they only have one life left.

Levetty.1279:

All this thread proves is that Anet should delete PvP from the game and ban everybody who has ever played it.

They have somehow managed to create by far the worst community I have ever seen in a online game who actively hate the idea of learning even the basic mechanics of the game let alone the individual classes. All you people do is sit on the forums 24/7 complaining that absolutly everything should be nerfed. You base your opinion on a mix of whatever the last streamer you saw decided they liked playing and what was the last class to kick your kitten in hot join. The Guardians who run around PvE spamming 1 on staff to tag for loot know more about how the game plays then you people.

Your insufferable whining destroys any half interesting skill or trait so everything becomes bland and brain dead which because they refuse to even make tiny skill splits between modes spreads to PVE like kittening cancer so the game mode people actually play can never evolve and has to be as brain dead as you want PvP to be.

I’d tell you go play something more your speed like afking for hats in TF2 but you have already destroyed this game so whats the point.

For once (and probably the only time ever), I agree with you.

Yeah on that note because I take sword I also take MoF mainly for aoe F3.

Sword also makes it easier to survive when outnumbered (1v2+ or small teamfight) and the aoe cleave plus aoe F3 is nice for hitting more enemies (and easy interrupts of resses and stomps). Scepter is totally superior in 1v1 though, but then has weaknesses if you’re fighting a necro say and a thief decides to try and gank you…

Ineptitude is pretty mediocre right now given the chaos armour nerf and if not taking Blinding Dissipation (tbh I believe Ineptitude should be moved to the Duelling line because it fits thematically better there).

iLeap provides a good port to chase enemies who are trying to kite. Also the mobility tricks you can play with it are still fun despite the old swap nerf. So many placed in pvp maps to exploit this and catch people unawares before unloading an F5 Mirror Images chain shatter in their face.

Blurred Frenzy is still second to Distortion as a number one survival tool. It needs a serious damage buff though, because that sucks.

But I also play with Torch for the stealth and (pathetic, need buffing) burns, and rely on big condi bursts using mirror images for damage. I agree the sustained condi pressure is awful without Scepter.

I would buy gems if they delete moa and portal.

Might give the balance team a chance to see how the rest of the class is rather than relying on those two crutches…

messiah.1908:

wow guys just wow. no shame at all….

MOA

ok when i played before HOT condi shatter which basically didnt change much beside CS ppl say useless build. i used moa and ppl say useless build as with condi you cant kill moa like power mesmer does. so when power shatter turned you moa almost no QQ was made about it.
now ppl complain cause the ability to doable moa. fact is good player will NEVER doable moa as its 180 sec skill (150 alacrity). when i doable moa its means probably the game is over so i just want to use the skill for the fun of it.

moa has dodges and evade skill which can put you in safe place or LOS place.
also moa can be evaded. yes its hard mid fight so if your ele ally just stick with you and heal you, you should be fine. or engi stealth you etc..
i dueld mesmer in team fight and their moa only hits me 30% of the time and the rest i died only few times cause no endurance. is it op no. is it L2P yes . is it bad allies who wont support you yes.

CONDITIONS

mtd was nerfed
confusion hasnt change a bit (beside mistrust which only helseth use it atm)
so why didnt you complain about it 1 year ago…
with only 2 conditions mainly which does dmg you cant control them?
with burn guard with 1 condition can you?
beside shatters, the condi shatter dont do much dmg directly so save dodge for shatters. or blind or evade or run further till they explode.

compare to necro chill spamm and boon rip – common….

i see ppl with 16 confusion attack like crazy or with 10 torment running what do you expect. they will die. and who 16 confusion and 10 torment. they didnt learn to dodge or evade or cleanse. they didnt learn condi build is like sustain build so over time mesmer has the upper hand so learn when to disengage.

i can ensure you

remove portal and moa and you wont see mesmer at all
nerf moa to 5 sec reduce cd to 90 sec. it will be usless as ppl will now use doable moa to get to 10 sec moa as it used to be… and then you see more QQ
also most of the time moa dies cause of burst from full party and not just 1v1. you only moa 1v1 necros as they can transfer condi to you (OP QQQQQQQQ nerf it. kidding) or if you fight versus ranger 1v1 to finish the job fast has he can sustain longer (QQQQQQQQQQ OPopOPop NERF NERF)

again

if you doable moa once know this. this mesmer is nube and easy kill as for 2 min you have enough time to kill him and he will be almost useless in team fight

Yeah, everything messiah said. Can’t really add more to that.

lol.

/15charrs

Increase Flow of Time to 1s/illusion. Please.

The application of condi also gets prevented by the same blocks, invulns and evades – it’s just that players in general don’t react to condis until they have already been inflicted with them – if direct damage had hit they would have just lost a chunk of health instantly. If the skills that applied condis were noticed (ie not attacking into scepter 2) and prevented there may be fewer complaints. Cleanse is like an additional safety net.

But I will accept that some “big hitter” condi skills across all classes have pretty hard to read animations, which certainly doesn’t help the situation. Nevermind passive condi application skills…

If all condi application was tied to counterable skills with readable tells and animations then there may be less of a problem.

Cynz.9437:

Curunen.8729:

Well then, playing devils advocate how about we remove all damage from phantasms and conditions from clones and make them purely utility – transfer all that damage directly to the Mesmer and buff our personal damage, both power and condition output significantly.

(not saying I want this, only countering the counter arguments for buffing illusion health)

That is what shatter build is basically.

No, not entirely.

Every dps build currently is a “shatter” build and relies on burst damage (whether condi or power) application. Sustained damage in between bursts is extremely mediocre (ie pathetic) and this is what I was getting at. Shift the sustained damage pressure from phantasms and clones back to the mesmer buffing weapon skills damage and condi application, then let’s see what happens…

But I guarantee there will be even more qq.

Well then, playing devils advocate how about we remove all damage from phantasms and conditions from clones and make them purely utility – transfer all that damage directly to the Mesmer and buff our personal damage, both power and condition output significantly.

(not saying I want this, only countering the counter arguments for buffing illusion health)

Even now after the alacrity and chaos armour nerfs I’ve had people saying “condi, nice.” and “condi mesmer so cheap.” and other things along those lines.

Despite the fact that I:
- don’t use scepter
- don’t use Ineptitude (I use godkitten MoF for aoe F3 even though the trait is subpar…)
- don’t use Duelling
- don’t use Chaos
- pretty much rely entirely on shatters for condi application

You seriously can’t win any moral argument against these players, they have it in their minds that condi mesmer is unskilled, cheap and made for noobs to play and will moan and groan till the cows come home, no matter what the state of mesmer is. As soon as these people see any sign of torment or confusion on them it’s like you’re a blooming reincarnation of satan and nothing you do or say will change them from hating you.

Only a few times I’ve had compliments for good play, but it’s rare.

Krysard.1364:

Curunen.8729:

there will always be an extremely irrational hatred for the class from part of the playerbase.

TBH you can say the same when talking about every single other class. I feel like the only calss that doesnt has an historial of being hated is engie

True but I think it is most applicable to mesmer, because they are designed to be annoying manipulative kittens, it’s the whole foundation and theme of the class. Kitten off the enemy until you kill them.

Condi mesmer damage application and output is mediocre, and has been since the MtD nerf and now indirectly from the alacrity nerf.

Biggest applications come from:
- Shatters
- Scepter 2
- Scepter 3
- Mistrust (but that build sucks in pvp because as soon as you get focused it’s game over)

So scepter 2 is relatively easy to avoid, and now scepter 3 can be fully dodged given how fast the channel is.
Nevermind how easy it is to avoid shatters – and missing shatters as a condi mesmer loses most of the damage. And nevermind how quickly clones and phantasms are vapourised by random aoe.

Now try to play condi without Scepter – yeah, it’s pretty pathetic. I have been using Sword/Torch+Staff Inspiration/Illusions/Chrono Carrion build, and it takes a full F5 mirror images, chain shatter sequence inside and outside F5 to land any serious damage. Sure I can melt other glass cannons (providing the damage hits) but it requires stupid amount of effort for very little reward. Come up against any build with decent sustain (ie druids, scrapper, reaper, rev etc) and it’s immediately noticeable how unrewarding it is, and how mandatory scepter is… The only reason I continue to play Sword/Torch+Staff is because I prefer a more mobile (ileap and phase retreat) and evasive (BF and prestige) playstyle. Scepter doesn’t provide the same enjoyment or satisfaction to use.

My biggest gripe with condi is how anet seems to want all mesmer condi builds to use scepter. All power or hybrid builds don’t have to use Greatsword, in fact they tend to work with any weapon. But playing condi without scepter is like shooting yourself in the foot.

Sorry for that rant but it’s the single most annoying thing in the game for me – and especially when traits like confusion on crit are axed before even making it into the game (would have made nice sword/greatsword hybrid build options).

Anyway people hate condi mesmer because they find it annoying – even though the whole point of mesmer is to be annoying. In any case I have no problems fighting enemy condi mesmers – in fact I feel sorry for them.

Would be nice if they required more than one random aoe cleave to kill, so yeah would be good to standardise the hp values.

Good question, I don’t know anymore.

At least we’ve always got butterflies to amuse ourselves with.

QQ saturation was reached a long time ago, especially in this sub forum.

RNGeesus and HoT raised temporary hopes; we have accepted the inevitable.

Meh, it doesn’t matter what state mesmers are in, whether overpowered (chronobunker), “cheesy” (wvw PU Condi) or underpowered (try playing any interrupt/lockdown build right now…) there will always be an extremely irrational hatred for the class from part of the playerbase.

In any case I didn’t jump on the chronobunker bandwagon because I don’t enjoy that role/playstyle.

However all other mesmer builds have been eclipsed by the HoT elite spec power creep that has yet to be nerfed on other professions (with the only exception of warrior).

And I still think many foundations of this class are not yet as the should be – for example the phantasm mechanic could all be reworked to active skills like shield #4, and so on.

The simplest change would be reverting Flow of Time back to 1 second per illusion.

It makes no sense to first cut Flow of Time down to 0.75s/illusion and then after some time axe alacrity to 33%. Sure one or the other is understandable, but both together is overkill.

Demonoid.1974:

Why are you comparing portal to search and rescue? What next? You gonna compare plague signet to blink? Mesmer has illusion of life, compare that to rez utilities. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion_of_Life vs. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Search_and_Rescue

I second the nerf though. Ranger already has amazing utilities on top of beastly pets finally, it doesn’t need the best rez in the game too (short cd 1200 range teleport pet help rez). Nerf it, rework it, develop things properly. Since when are pets wizards…?

Yeah, this.

I don’t see the comparison with Portal. Illusion of Life makes more sense being a res skill and it has a ridiculously long cool down.

Bottom line for me is, if it wasn’t for Phase Retreat, I would likely never use staff.

Phase Retreat is such a kitten good kiting/positioning skill it carries the rest of the weapon and makes it worth using.

Condi mesmer kills noobs; condi mesmer fails against any half decent players.

But that applies pretty much to all of mesmer in general.

Condition stacks from shatters are so low that you have to blow full shatters back to back (taking advantage of IR, Cp or maybe DE if you take Duelling – although I believe Inspiration is currently superior) to land any decent damage – which is then easy to cleanse or counter.

They’re still easy to dodge/block/otherwise avoid in the first place – only Mirror Images surprise burst, or Cp/IR follow up burst (not the initial shatter, but second shatter) with respawned illusions is harder to judge when to avoid.

The only weapon with decent condi output is Scepter – but it’s weak defensively in anything more than a 1v1, not to mention being mostly single target (how often do you hit more than one player for a full channel of Confusing Images anyway…).

If anything, condi mesmer still needs a buff in base areas.

Inspiration gives you decent built in condi cleanse, which is handy. It also allows you to take Mirror Images for extra burst, given you don’t need things like Mantra of Resolve for the condi cleanse.

Chrono allows extra shatter fodder if not using Duelling. Duelling of course helps with DE and Sharper Images – although Energy Sigil nerf hurts DE a little, and illusions still die/are shattered too fast for Sharper Images to make a significant difference. Therefore I believe Chrono is still more useful.

I don’t think Chaos offers enough compared to those – sure Chaotic Persistence/Transference are nice to have, and PU/BD always useful, but it’s just a bit… meh. I’d rather have back to back shatters with IR and Cp in Chrono to reach reasonable confusion/torment stacks.

1. Winds of Chaos
Increase Burning duration to 2s.
Increase blob velocity significantly.
Increase base damage significantly.

2. Phase Retreat
Good as it is.

3. iWarlock
Make active part of skill like Shield – so in this case apply 4 stacks of confusion for 6 seconds in a small purple AoE explosion centred on your target when doing the finger point casting animation (similar to Mistrust effect), along with a second random condition from a pool of options.
Then the iWarlock appears (after the casting animation) and launches its projectile which must be increased in velocity, and also have an AoE splash damage effect around the target if it hits.
Increase base cooldown a little if necessary.

4. WTkitten is this kitten
Reduce the cooldown to like 12 seconds or add additional effects compared to “normal” combo field Chaos Armour. For example make it proc aegis on cast or reflect projectiles (give it a suitably different visual effect to distinguish between normal Chaos Armour). Actually I like Xyonon’s aoe stunbreak idea better than my suggestions, so ignore this one from me.

5. Chaos Storm
Increase base damage
Always proc Daze on first hit (after that random)
Change boon pool to Aegis (3s) Resistance (2s), Protection (3s), Stability (3s).
Change condi pool to Blind, Weakness, Chill, Poison.
Each tick should proc confusion (1 stack for 3 seconds).
Each tick should proc regen (3 seconds).
Reduce cooldown to 30s.

Overall it should be more rewarding for allies to stand in and more punishing for enemies. At the moment apart from the Daze it poses very little threat unless traited for all the interrupt traits.

Yep. People are disillusioned because the current situation has been repeated many times during the life of this game such that any hope for a brighter future is not worth the effort.

Staff has been left behind with the power creep across the game.

With chaos armour blind being removed it even has kitten defence apart from phase retreat kiting.

And it’s offence sucks compared to sword/greatsword/scepter.

The phantasm is single target with a horrifically slow and easily avoided projectile.

I really can’t say many positive things about staff at the moment other than phase retreat (I am coming purely from pvp/wvw perspective). Double Scepter or Scepter/x Sword/x is better for condi builds and greatsword or Sword/x better for power builds.

Staff is awful at the moment.

Auto attack damage and condis are weak.
iWarlock attack is too easy to avoid (and not that great damage in pure condi builds)
Chaos armour sucks hardcore and Staff #4 is so bad on a huge cooldown.

The only reasons I would currently take staff are Phase Retreat which is pretty much the only saving grace of this weapon, and Chaos Storm mainly for the Daze procs to either prevent enemy rezzing or whatever.

Otherwise Staff is in dire need of a significant damage buff in all areas, and Staff #4 needs to be deleted/replaced.

lol, so my decision to uninstall a couple of days ago was justified.

I guess I’ll look in again when the next patch hits in April?

It’s funny – I had more fun during the weekend reimagining mesmer trait lines that I didn’t even log in to play the game… I think that speaks volumes.

Very well put together, I really like it and would be happy to see it as the next elite spec.

A few things would need tweaking though – for example “Veil of Lyssa” looks pretty overpowered!

FJSAMA.2867:

Curunen.8729:

All the big things have happened (HoT, Chrono, June specialisation patch) but we’ve ended up back almost exactly in the same position before all of that.

Which make us worse overall than before since the floor of all other classes raised (powercreeped).. Its a disgrace… Any serious balance would make the haters qq again and further nerfs would strike hard again making mesmer worse everytime in this endless declining loop.
I already gave up in giving ideas and suggestions… At least for now.. Even balance dev(s) seem biased towards this class. Doubt anything will suddenty change it…

Yeah, you’re right I’m not being critical enough.

But I can’t see it changing at all. Maybe temporarily, but ultimately we can never hold onto anything half decent that is presented to us.

msalakka.4653:

They threw her in front of the firing squad, although it could be the squad is too disinterested and disheartened by now to even lock and load.

That’s what I think the situation is now.

All the big things have happened (HoT, Chrono, June specialisation patch) but we’ve ended up back almost exactly in the same position before all of that.

And given this cycle has been perpetuated since release I personally can’t be kittened to try and push an agenda anymore.

I wouldn’t hold my breath about anything happening as a consquence.

Chip Skylark.2367:

Mak.2657:

I’m feared that dat guys not even trolls…
Chrono was heavily nerfed ( even chrono shatter – alacrity, nerf, quickness stomp/rezz nerf, Sigil of energe nerf, etc) +buffed thief . I have feelings like chrono is low/mid tier now.

Btw, Chip Skylark.2367 wanna try some BO5 where you on chono shatter (with moa) and me on any other class on your choice (build choice is still mine though)

I’m not trolling. These roleplayers are trying to use clever mesmer misdirection tricks on us to make this thread about trolling and not about how broken their class is.

And no, I don’t play mesmer. I don’t like the idea of hiding behind stealth/clones like a coward and using dirty broken tricks like Moa! Not my style.

Well if it’s as easy as you claim it is, then surely it should be no problem for you to roll one and dominate enemies just for the sake of it. Any build you like tbh.

lol, oh I sincerely pray that portal and moa are deleted, and F5 double elites.

Then we might actually be fixed in all other aspects of gameplay…

Mikkel.8427:

Clone death was super toll-tastic. I’m happy they got rid of it.

I’m NOT happy they never compensated us properly for all the condi traits they axed.

They also turned around and nerfed our active application (MtD), also.

Then put very little thought into the placement of condi traits within our specializations, especially in the dueling line.

Which is why Condi Mesmer is so kitten outside of solo-toll roaming in WvW.

And yet I still see qq messages about “condi Mesmer nub” or similar, despite it being the easiest condi build in the game to counter.

Om a related note, if alacrity stays as it is, then at the very least Flow of Time must be reverted to 1 second per illusion.

I’m not pleased with it remaining at 0.75s…

See I would feel way to susceptible to a counter condi bomb (particularly necros) if not currently running Inspiration.

Duelling/Chaos /Illusions is the most offensive for condi (especially if you slot mantra of distraction and run with Mistrust), but I don’t like how incredibly weak it is at dealing with incoming conditions.

msalakka.4653:

We got a very nice overhaul with the traits rework. Remember that thread dedicated to praising Robert Gee?

The MtD buff lasted, what, three hours? Because “we tested it on golems.” Then, bit by bit, they chipped away at everything until people felt that they had gutted Mesmer. Yet, at the time, people said “don’t worry, Chrono is coming”. And come it did. Then, bit by bit…

So really, it’s nice to want things. But anything they give you they will promptly nerf back into uselessness.

Yep, this is the mesmer way.

Which is why there’s no point in hoping for it to ever get better. Always going to be hammered back to below average after anything good.

Same thing will happen for future elite specs and revamps.

Flow of time surely must be reverted to 1s per illusion now.

It’s ridiculous to keep it at 0.75s after nerfing alacrity. It’s so insignificant right now.

I think Mistrust should be merged with Duelist’s Discipline and then made as a Grandmaster major.

That leaves room for Confusing Combatants to return maybe as an Adept major, and then Desperate Decoy can be deleted in favour of something better.