Guild Wars 2

Weird bug.

Just started playing for the first time in a month and it’s a strange bug to come back to. Hope it gets fixed quickly.

Rym.1469:

“We’re proud to announce our first Support/Tank specialization for Thief – Dare Devil and his healing-oriented melee weapon – Staff!”

lol, good one. xD

Condi mesmers are nothing in terms of damage compared to other class Condi builds (eles, guardians, rangers, thieves, engis…).

The only thing mesmers have as an advantage is increased sustain through stealth IF they take PU.

If they don’t take PU then every other class does condi better than mesmer, especially since the MtD nerf and loss of clone death traits.

Once PU is nerfed and The Pledge is changed, this is a non-issue.

Doam.8305:

I think they will go the usage route

releasing a new legendary rifle is no different that releasing an underwater legendary after all. Only two classes in the entire game can use rifle and there only releasing 3 new legionaries with that I think they would be wise to go with scope by making the weapons that have the broadest use among the classes.

GS maybe not as I’m sure people who made Eternity might rage to no end but maybe Anet will release another useless title in the vain of twice told legend.

Staff, Sword, and Sheild will be the three new legends in my book

Simply put if you look it up most weapons are usable by only 4 classes even with the addition of specialization weapons the total is an average of 4. The Staff can be used by 6 classes in HoT while the Sword and Shield can both be used by 5 seperate classes. The only other weapons with this sort of reach are the GS and the Underwater weapons which I don’t think we’d get simply because we already have 3 GS and Underwater would start a pitchfork wielding crowd ready to tar and feather the first person they find.

So my prediction once again is a new legendary for the Staff, Sword, and Shield this also includes a two hand, one hand, and offhand plus a ranged and melee weapon.

I agree Staff and Sword are very likely.

And Shield is also, to ensure the Engineers also have access to one new legendary (and seeing as I don’t expect Pistol, Rifle, or Hammer to be on the first set of legendaries). That way every class can access at least one of the new weapons.

Say goodnight, Trahearne.

Ah yes, “Dragons”… We have dismissed those claims.

I can understand if all hands are on deck to finish HoT, so this doesn’t bother me this year.

Yeah, blurred inscriptions without at least taking 2 or 3 signets (and especially signet of midnight) is a waste when you can take Shattered Concentration.

Also there is not much aegis. The only native sources of aegis are Chaos Storm, PU and Signet of Inspiration. PU has random chance through watered down boons and SoI has a very random chance to proc it. Scepter and Offhand Sword only block one attack each and have no other defences. Greatsword of course is entirely offensive. Sword only has blurred frenzy (very easy to wait and time your burst for the end of the animation), Pistol is purely offensive. There are only three utility skills and the vast majority will be taking blink, decoy and perhaps portal/condicleanse/MoD, and all the elites are on very long cooldowns. I don’t feel like going on…

Good mesmers will make it seems like they have an infinite impenetrable amount of defenses, but this is an elaborate illusion as there are very clear windows of opportunity to catch and land damage on mesmers when they are very vulnerable. But you’ve got to know mesmer skills and traits inside out in order to identify what an enemy mesmer is using and then counter it – more so than with other classes tbh (other than of course thief).

The only thing skewing the defenses/sustain at the moment is the excessive stealth duration through The Pledge and PU. Once that is fixed, there should be no problem at all.

Summon phantasms, wait for cooldowns to reset, shatter them for damage (or auxilliary effect) and resummon.

There’s no good reason to let illusions die anymore without shattering them unless they are killed by an enemy.

I personally don’t believe in these being exclusive playstyles anymore – rather shatter skills and phantasms should both be made use of in any build for whatever purpose they have been traited/geared for.

Everyone’s already said it but I’ll also do so.

Blurred Inscriptions conflicts with Shattered Concentration. I don’t think I need to elaborate.

Taking more than one signet in utilities means losing any two of blink, decoy, portal, nullfield, mantra of distraction/resolve and so on. Also ether signet is not great and signet of humility has a very long cooldown.

I’ve seen good signet builds/players, bur these builds have very clear tradeoffs and weaknesses due to trait and skill conflicts. The invuln on signet is basically their only decent defence along with the defensive shatter traits if taking Duelling and Inspiration with Domination.

I also recommend you try playing a 5 signet Mesmer and see how it works firsthand before saying the invuln is too much.

Don’t forget native 25% movement speed bonus with already -25% on cc conditions.

Then you can take Melandru/Hoelbrak runes and even poultry soup in wvw to have pretty good passive condition immunity.

Tao.1234:

Curunen.8729:

Mesmer condition damage/application is actually not so good compared with other classes after the patch because:

Things lost
- All clone death traits
- Maim the Disillusioned nerf down to 1 stack
- Bleeding nerf (affects sharper images)
- No free Chaotic Transference if you trait staff

Things gained
- native iElasticity for staff and staff clones
- buffed Scepter 3
- Ineptitude and Blinding Dissipation with Confusion buff
- Baseline IP (does not make up for MtD nerf)

iMage was kitten before the patch and is still kitten afterwards. Pistol trait is still a problem.

I would say other classes’ condition builds output more condition application and damage. The problem comes with any mesmer condition build taking Torch, The Pledge and PU – which together offers ridiculously easy sustain.

I believe if The Pledge is changed to a flat 20% cooldown reduction on torch skills (not incentivising camping in stealth) together with a PU nerf at least by 50%, then everything else is fine.

In any case power mesmer is so much better than condi and still has good enough sustain/survivability.

If Consfusion would be nerfed to match Retaliation output, and still posses it’s functionality, then current PU Condi Mesmer would be subpar to other condition builds and their respective classes.

You can out-sustain torment and bleed and deal with Blind, but when Confusion hits for 3k per skill usage(even AA), which is a must to deal with blind, then it’s pretty much clear that this build with it’s current mechanics needs a rework.

So a Scepter skills such as Confusing Images would stack duration while channeling, instead stacking intensity.

Pretty much, having inner tick for 500 would still be a lot per every single skill usage without ICD.

I’d happily accept that in exchange for reverting MtD to 2 stacks, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I personally believe Blinding Dissipation should be competing with DE at grandmaster in any case, but I know this would cause problems for some glass power builds.

Mesmer condition damage/application is actually not so good compared with other classes after the patch because:

Things lost
- All clone death traits
- Maim the Disillusioned nerf down to 1 stack
- Bleeding nerf (affects sharper images)
- No free Chaotic Transference if you trait staff

Things gained
- native iElasticity for staff and staff clones
- buffed Scepter 3
- Ineptitude and Blinding Dissipation with Confusion buff
- Baseline IP (does not make up for MtD nerf)

iMage was kitten before the patch and is still kitten afterwards. Pistol trait is still a problem.

I would say other classes’ condition builds output more condition application and damage. The problem comes with any mesmer condition build taking Torch, The Pledge and PU – which together offers ridiculously easy sustain.

I believe if The Pledge is changed to a flat 20% cooldown reduction on torch skills (not incentivising camping in stealth) together with a PU nerf at least by 50%, then everything else is fine.

In any case power mesmer is so much better than condi and still has good enough sustain/survivability.

Supported.

I am still surprised at the inclusion of an ascended breather. Breathers should be skins.

Fay.2357:

bhagwad.4281:

Just as an update, the build seems to be doing quite well. What’s funny is that people don’t seem to realize that I don’t shatter. I’ve got the following comments recently:

1. Sigh
2. Mesmer “skill”
3. Why does ever mesmer have to play the same cheap condi build? I know why…no skill!

Not bad for a “no shatter”/no pu/no interupt build

Reminds me of hate pms I got once while playing prepatch pure glass sw/t+gs shatter (44006) accusing me of being a no-skill PU condie noob. Was just like…really?

Let me guess – they also moaned about you kittening dozens of clowns and phantasms out of your kitten, having on demand distortions every few seconds together with blocks, evades, dazes, stuns, interrupts, perma stealth, perma protection, perma vigour, unlimited teleports and stunbreaks, and… :p

bhagwad.4281:

Just as an update, the build seems to be doing quite well. What’s funny is that people don’t seem to realize that I don’t shatter. I’ve got the following comments recently:

1. Sigh
2. Mesmer “skill”
3. Why does ever mesmer have to play the same cheap condi build? I know why…no skill!

Not bad for a “no shatter”/no pu/no interupt build

Hehe, just shows how clueless many people who complain about Mesmer are when they can’t even identify key skills and traits being used or not used. xD

Pistol for ranged power, dagger for melee condi?

Then with our 5 offhands that would open up a lot of cool options.

skcamow.3527:

Curunen.8729:

I will agree that Mental Defence could be swapped with Restorative Illusions and also have the cooldown of the defender (and utility skill) lowered to 20s base. Thanks for the idea.

That sounds decent, then with the move to GM for restorative illusions it also gets the AoE cleansing back and maybe even add an AoE heal.

Agreed – restoring Restorative Illusions (lol) to do AoE cleansing again would be super if moved back up to Grandmaster.

trooper.2650:

Mental Defender is on a 25sec CD. Pretending this is a clone generation trait and saying Inspiration is fine makes me smile.
It is arguabily not even a good GM trait because of the very long CD. It should go down to 5 sec if you want it to be a valid DE alternative

Personally it’s not about direct alternatives for me, but thematically relevant traits that fit with the trait line. Duelling is about pumping out clones fast, Chaos about boon/condition management (hence the iDisenchanter), Inspiration about defence (hence the iDefender), Domination about… well… Dominating (hence the interrupt/daze proccing a phantasm), etc.

They don’t a have to generate the same frequency of illusions, but rather take into account the whole trait line and synergy so it makes sense.

I will agree that Mental Defence could be swapped with Restorative Illusions and also have the cooldown of the defender (and utility skill) lowered to 20s base. Thanks for the idea.

Maybe in a few years.

skcamow.3527:

So much talk of replacing Malicious Sorcery. I like the concept; maybe not worth a GM but it’s a decent trait. I’d rather not flat out remove decent traits unless we can somehow get the malicious sorcery functionality added to scepter permanently.

When I say replace it means a trait is moved elsewhere (see the Tree Overviews).

EDIT: Going to keep editing this as new ideas form.

Hmm so this is becoming a thing now.

The one thing to note is it most likely will require an extensive amount of little tweaks here and there to Mesmer as a whole to take into account the possibility for extra illusion generation (so tweaking clones/phantasms/shatters etc).

Anyway here’s my revised structure (obviously still with a lot of things to work out).

Domination:
Induced Nightmare – summon a phantasm based on your current weapon set when you daze or interrupt an enemy (variable ICD depending on summoned phantasm skill cooldown) – replaces Imagined Burden.
Tree overview:
Adept – BI / Empowered Illusions / Rending Shatter
Master – Imagined Burden / CS / Shattered Concentration
Grandmaster – Induced Nightmare / PB+FI (merged) / MA

Duelling:
Deceptive Evasion – as normal.
Just needs buffs to Mistrust and HM

Chaos:
Banish Enchantment – whenever you hit an enemy who has at least three unique boons OR whenever you are hit by at least three unique conditions, summon an iDisenchanter (same ICD as the skill) – replaces Mirror of Anguish. Fall Damage trait move to PvE/WvW Mastery system (for every class).
Tree Overview:
Adept – MoM / ID / Mirror of Anguish
Master – CD / CT / Banish Enchantment
Grandmaster – CI / PU / BD

Inspiration
Mental Defence – reduce ICD and cooldown of the utility skill to 20s. Move to Master tier and swap with Restorative Illusions (which should be buffed to AoE cleanse and possibly AoE heal).
Tree Overview
Adept – MF / RM / PI
Master – WF / MD / PP
Grandmaster – Restorative Illusions / Illusionary Inspiration / TE

Illusions
Duplicity – whenever you use a skill that summons a clone, summon an additional clone (must be a native skill and not traited, suitable ICD) – replaces Malicious Sorcery.
Tree Overview:
Adept – Shattered Strength / PoM+PH (merged) / The Pledge
Master – MtD / Compounding Power / Malicious Sorcery
Grandmaster – Duplicity / MoF / Ineptitude

Chronomancer
Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasma – the latter strictly speaking is also illusion generation on shatter. I agree that they should be both be grandmaster traits with Seize the Moment moving down to master tier, and then maintaining the original version of IR.

NOTES/QUESTIONS
- Potentially, Illusionary Defence and Compounding Power could be merged into one trait, leaving room for Descent into Madness to still exist in Chaos, I’d the Mastery system thing is not an option.
- Not sure about merging Furious Interruption with Power Block, but not sure where else it can go.
- Is Blurred Inscriptions in the right place?
- Rending Shatter should actually be ok with the increases shatter fodder and baseline IP.
- I strongly believe PU, CI and Bountiful Disillusionment should be mutually exclusive boon generators. Taking any two together would be way too powerful.
- Mirror of Anguish still needs a buff.
- The Illusion tree is very difficult to arrange because there’s so many possibilities even with the minor traits (ie free 20% cooldown on illusion skills and 33% confusion duration…).
- Inspiration phantasm traits (PI and PP) are meh… they don’t deserve two whole spots but not sure what to do right now.

Here’s a thought I had about this in a thread in the pvp forum:

philheat.3956:

Honestly reveal on auto reflect is a bad design, it’s not only about Master of Manipulation but Evasive Mirros works similar if you’re in stealth and someone is hitting u with a projectile.

In genera i like channel projectile skills can hit u in stealth a but a reflection + reveal is too much imho.

Yeah it can be annoying with evasive mirror if you try to dodge a projectile while stealthed.

And I agree MoM is strangely counterproductive with Mass Invis.

I think reflects should specifically be changed to not cause reveal.

Instead I would like to see (assuming it is possible and not too complicated to so) a new visual effect to deal with this situation – whenever you reflect a projectile from stealth you gain a temporary outline visible to all players for a fraction of a second with each reflected hit, but which vanishes as soon as the last attack is reflected either leaving you back in stealth if its duration is still going or back to normal with no reveal debuff.

The mental image is like ripples on water when throwing a stone across the surface.

This would allow counterplay for channeled skills and projectiles (you could try noscoping for fun to temporarily make the enemy visible).

In fact I’d like to see this kind of visual effect for any damage taken while in stealth. Reveal is a contrived mechanic that doesn’t feel natural apart from when used on certain skills (ie sic em or whatever). But as for reflect damage and taking damage, it would be nice to have a more subtle sci-fi style ripple in the cloak that provides a visual cue

@Alpha – I just thought, the Chaos trait could be summoning an iDisenchanter instead of a clone (I just feel the iDisenchanter fits with the boon/condition theme of that line).

Anyway, seems the other thread got deleted and unfortunately it’s kind of offtopic in here.

Insane! :o

Funny I get 1 Chaos, 2 Domination, 2 Duelling. But I don’t even play Dom/Due/Cha currently anyway.

The last one was a hard choice between blink and decoy.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Linnael.1069:

So are we going with #Geelieve, Young Geezy, or straight up R. Geesus now?

Lmao!

Hehe, RNGeesus has a nice ring to it and fits the Mesmer theme. xD

Providing of course it goes down well with the boss.

Danel.8573:

Curunen.8729:

Torch seems cool.

I wonder what the additional mechanic to compensate only an offhand will be – only an F2 in addition to F1 or something else as well?

There was mention of one specialization getting a defiance bar as a mechanic and if they didn’t mean the Tempest’s earth overload ability, I could imagine the Warrior turning his full adrenaline bar into a defiance bar for some time.

Interesting, Defiance would fit nicely together with an F2 (much like alacrity and F5). I might make another warrior to enjoy playing this specialisation.

Tealots.6095:

Curunen.8729:

I’m still going to maintain that Cry of Frustration should have one torment stack per illusion, base, since the change to MtD.

It seems natural that it was changed with the illusion generation capabilities of Chrono in mind, together with IP – although depending on the end result of IR, it could mean that all three of DE, IR and Cp will become mandatory for shatter heavy condition play.

Makes sense since not being able to move or use any ability for fear of taking extra damage is, you know, frustrating…

EDIT: OH MY! I’m so sorry! :o

I’m very tired and totally misread your post! Edited my unpleasant/blunt comments – please accept my apologies.

One stack on Cry of Frustration as standard would provide a dedicated condition shatter burst button which would also provide the additional torment pressure that brings the balance back into a decent spot from the overnerf of MtD, without making all the other shatters overpowered in their condition application.

What a shame.

It really needs a cooldown reduction tbh, as well as making more reliable.

Torch seems cool.

I wonder what the additional mechanic to compensate only an offhand will be – only an F2 in addition to F1 or something else as well?

Mirror blade got nerfed. Mantras and Blinding Dissipation got fixes.

The only legit things to complain about now would be PU and maybe still CS (although the mantra recharge fix has kind of solved this). The Pledge could also be changed to flat 20% recharge.

I’m still going to maintain that Cry of Frustration should have one torment stack per illusion, base, since the change to MtD.

It seems natural that it was changed with the illusion generation capabilities of Chrono in mind, together with IP – although depending on the end result of IR, it could mean that all three of DE, IR and Cp will become mandatory for shatter heavy condition play.

I’m considering situations such as – Blink, dodge (in combat), F3.

That’s a 1 illusion plus yourself shatter which won’t produce a clone to follow up with – dodge, F1 (or F2 if condition). It will again only be a one illusion plus yourself shatter rather that a two illusion plus yourself shatter (which incidentally would proc IR).

It seems this change to two separate illusions would mean prioritising the initial setup, after which you can still chain shatter everything else with a single dodge (because you’d already have one clone out) or other single illusion generation skill.

The only thing that limits is twitch plays, like the above F3 example. Or for example in condition to do say a one illusion (plus yourself) F1 followed by a 2 illusion (plus yourself) F2 because the followup shatter would only have a single dodge clone.

I don’t mind having to methodically setup all the time (with Chronophantasma it should solve that issue but then it has become a mandatory trait to use in conjunction with IR), but it would be a shame to limit interesting plays.

Hence my idea of a stacking effect (see post on first page) that puts a limitation on the chain but allows two consecutive shatters proccing IR back to back – and this effect should persist through Continuum Shift preventing mindlessly spamming all shatters in a row with a free clone.

Edit: I changed a few things for clarity:

“I have an idea for IR – how about applying some kind of stacking effect like Fencer’s Finesse does.

So for example, you shatter with no illusions -> a clone is returned and you receive an effect, call it “Time Lag” (I can’t think up a more catchy word).

This effect lasts for 5 seconds (can be adjusted upwards to balance – maybe 7 seconds would work best) and can only be at a maximum of 2 stacks. Therefore say you hit F1 (no illusions, self shatter) – one clone is spawned and you get 5 seconds of time lag. You then follow up with F2 – both you and the clone shatter and then you end up with 2 stacks of Time Lag with a few seconds remaining on the first.

Now if you followed up immediately with F3, Illusionary Reversion would not proc because you are at max stacks of Time Lag, one of which must expire before shattering will return a clone again.

The overall idea here is to still give the possibility of chain/sequential shatters up to 2 times and then have a sort of “ICD” which limits the chain unless you manually spawn additional illusions.

The visual icon on the bar will provide a cue for yourself and enemies to know when IR will proc so you can easily keep track of it.

This effect should persist through Continuum Shift preventing mindless shatter spam.

Is this too messy/complicated?"

philheat.3956:

Honestly reveal on auto reflect is a bad design, it’s not only about Master of Manipulation but Evasive Mirros works similar if you’re in stealth and someone is hitting u with a projectile.

In genera i like channel projectile skills can hit u in stealth a but a reflection + reveal is too much imho.

Yeah it can be annoying with evasive mirror if you try to dodge a projectile while stealthed.

And I agree MoM is strangely counterproductive with Mass Invis.

I think reflects should specifically be changed to not cause reveal.

Instead I would like to see (assuming it is possible and not too complicated to so) a new visual effect to deal with this situation – whenever you reflect a projectile from stealth you gain a temporary outline visible to all players for a fraction of a second with each reflected hit, but which vanishes as soon as the last attack is reflected either leaving you back in stealth if its duration is still going or back to normal with no reveal debuff.

The mental image is like ripples on water when throwing a stone across the surface.

This would allow counterplay for channeled skills and projectiles (you could try noscoping for fun to temporarily make the enemy visible).

In fact I’d like to see this kind of visual effect for any damage taken while in stealth. Reveal is a contrived mechanic that doesn’t feel natural apart from when used on certain skills (ie sic em or whatever). But as for reflect damage and taking damage, it would be nice to have a more subtle sci-fi style ripple in the cloak that provides a visual cue.

I agree the system of Minors is a bit redundant now that we automatically get all of them when picking a trait line. They only have any relevance while levelling.

lol, not bad.

I’d made a pretty long post on the subject of fun and maximising build efficiency for the sake of winning but the kittening forum decided to eat it… >:(

I can’t be kittened to retype it so I’ll try a tl;dr version.

- primary in game goals are a compromise between playing to win and playing to have fun.
- you can only control your own build choice based on the two parameters stated above.
- other players can do whatever they like in the confines of the game

Example – I find using PU, Scepter+Torch in condition play to be extremely boring – I’d rather go and do paperwork than play like this. Hence my preference for Sword/torch and no PU. However the fact that other players can choose this trait and weapon combo is their choice in the compromise between"playing for fun" and “playing to win”. I do not criticise them because I decided to choose a “weaker” build that strikes the balance for me between fun and winning.

SolarDragon.7063:

bhagwad.4281:

Federer and Nadal are two of the politest sportsmen I’ve ever seen.

Their tennis rivalry was the most legendary ever.

So no…you do not need to have trashtalk to give the audience a great time. What you do inside the court (or match) matters – not out of it.

This. So much this. Federer especially, but both of them hugely polite, respectful, and amazingly humble for people on top of the world, and yet their matches drew crowds like no others.
You don’t need trashtalk for a good rivalry.

I agree, he’s got to be one of the most polite/humble public figures at the top of their sport I think I’ve ever seen – in fact all the top players of that sport at the moment seem to be more respectful than ever.

Or maybe just make IR require 1 (separate) clone to be shattered in order to return 1 clone, rather than 2 of any illusion.

That will at least require burning endurance (DE) or a weapon or utility skill in between shatters in order to get the extra clone.

Edit – I just realised this doesn’t work so I’ll go back to my previous post. It’s late and I’m tired.

I have an idea for IR – how about applying some kind of stacking effect like Fencer’s Finesse does.

So for example, you shatter with no illusions -> a clone is returned and you receive an effect, call it “Time Lag” (I can’t think up a more catchy word).

This effect lasts for 5 seconds (can be adjusted upwards to balance – maybe 7 seconds would work best) and can only be at a maximum of 2 stacks. Therefore say you hit F1 (no illusions, self shatter) – one clone is spawned and you get 5 seconds of time lag. You then follow up with F2 – both you and the clone shatter and then you end up with 2 stacks of Time Lag with a few seconds remaining on the first.

Now if you followed up immediately with F3, Illusionary Reversion would not proc because you are at max stacks of Time Lag, one of which must expire before shattering will return a clone again.

The overall idea here is to still give the possibility of chain/sequential shatters up to 2 times and then have a sort of “ICD” which limits the chain unless you manually spawn additional illusions.

The visual icon on the bar will provide a cue for yourself and enemies to know when IR will proc so you can easily keep track of it.

This effect should persist through Continuum Shift preventing mindless shatter spam.

Is this too messy/complicated?

I will be honest here – I am quite upset with the change to Illusionary Reversion.

Going with ideas from other members on here, I’d rather see it be made a grandmaster trait and maintain original functionality of always returning one clone on shatter.

Mikkel.8427:

I think nullfield is still great… the only problem i have with it (and the rest of the glamours) is the baseline -recast… they couldnt just round them down to the nearest factor of 5? would that extra -2 seconds on the recasts have suddenly made them OP?

Hehe, I agree the numbers are… annoying.

Would be nice to see factors of 5 – so portal and veil at 70 or 75s, Nullfield at 35s and so on.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Curunen.8729:

I don’t know any other class that has actively tried to play without their F skills in the way people could ignore them on Mesmer in the past. I think that was the bigger joke hence Anet encouraging everyone to use them now.

Do you never use F3 or F4 either?

To be fair, I don’t know another class where using F skills interferes so much with using another class mechanic.

The closest I can think of is turrets on engineers. And in that case, you do have engineers slotting turrets just for the toolbelt skill and not the turret.

And when turret engineer was a thing, you’d drop a turret and ignore the f-skills until the turret was about to die anyway, which is pretty much what a phant mesmer does.

In the current model I think it has most in common with warrior mechanics – illusions are kind of like adrenaline except they also have physical presence, then shatters are like warrior F1 burst skills.

I believe given our F skills are designed to blow up our resource, we should have had baseline IP from the start of the game – that way this whole artificial distinction between “phantasm builds” and “shatter builds” would never have happened. I fully appreciate it’s hard to get used to the new system given how it used to be.

However I believe if Anet really intended “phantasms/clone management” and “shattering” to be separate playstyles, then our F skills should have purely been illusion generation skills. I can see it is a strange situation at the moment for players who uses to play pure illusion damage builds (phantasms or clone conditions) and pretty much ignore F1 and F2 existed.

However when it comes to F3 and F4, I believe everyone not using these in pvp whether pre patch or post patch is at a massive disadvantage and gimping themselves for no good reason. Sure in PvE you could ignore F3, but in pvp, even without IP F3 was and is crucial for optimal play.

I don’t know any other class that has actively tried to play without their F skills in the way people could ignore them on Mesmer in the past. I think that was the bigger joke hence Anet encouraging everyone to use them now.

Do you never use F3 or F4 either?

There can only be one.

I hate alts (the only alt I truly got attached to was my Charr melee power ranger although that was for kittening people off in pvp).

Fay.2357:

At any rate, I’m confident that the devs are going to make reasonable tweaks to chrono that will put it in a better spot. I’m very much looking forward to the next beta event.

Wow, is that really you? What happened to the pessimism? :o

If you’re rich you can try Antitoxin Runes + Sweet Bean Buns for insane condition duration reduction while maintaining respectable condition damage and duration, especially with Chrono 25% movement speed.

I’m too poor… :/

Iavra.8510:

Regarding MtD, i’m on Helseth’s side and think that 2 stacks of torment would be much too strong, even more so with Chrono.

Oh I agree completely 2 stacks with current Chrono would be stupidly broken.

I’m saying that currently (not using Chrono), MtD was seriously overnerfed – and personally I believe F2 should apply 1 stack of torment standard being our “condition shatter” button.

I say MtD kind of needs Chrono right now to be on par with power builds, given the 50% nerf.

But what I don’t want to see is a gutting of Chrono on a similar scale to the MtD nerf – ruining some traits or whatever. I’m just worried with how Anet usually nerfs Mesmer – it’s not “a gentle shaving of a few percent” like warrior’s healing signet – it’s “let’s chainsaw this thing to pieces”…

Nubu.6148:

Duellin / Chrono / Illusions is totally too strong atm .

Even d/d ele cant handle the spam .

Even if it is (which I don’t know since I didn’t play in the beta), I seriously hope they don’t do a Maim the Disillusioned hackjob and kill it by nerfing something hard into the ground.

Rather small adjustments and take it from there.

I haven’t played since the mirror blade Nerf so don’t know if that is contributing to damage loss.

Try not to get stuck in the mindset of “rotations”. There are short combos (like mirror blade + mindwrack), so being fluent in using any set of skills back to back is necessary, but you need to be flexible and adapt all the time. There are no fixed rotations for Mesmer.

I sincerely recommend binding a single button for dodge.

Don’t waste decoy in such a way, and you don’t need to use F3 either which is better saved for other purposes. But if you want to stack a ton of vuln, then you can use it situationally when you happen to have 3 illusions up and cooldowns are ready for an F1 burst.

The easiest combo here is (out of context) mirror blade -> dodge -> F1 in melee range. That is a 3 illusion (including yourself) shatter, will have stacked vuln and might and will deal a good chunk of damage. If you need to blink into melee range, or use say ileap/swap before swapping weapon to greatsword for the burst, then go ahead. But as stated above, positional shatters and smart use of skills responding to enemy skill usage is preferred, not simply learning rotations.