Guild Wars 2

Maim the Disillusioned.

The new one is a shadow of its former self.

MailMail.6534:

Curunen.8729:

It is awful how little burst pressure you can put on an opponent now by shattering.

I keep trying to run Sword/Torch + Staff and it sucks so badly compared to pre-patch.

I think your issue is that you’re using torch. Unless you’re using sword, I see very little use for torch in general (unless you’re running PU). Take a look at my build linked above, and try it out. I was chatting with pyro last night and explained why imo pistol is much better. You have better bleeds (even more when pistol trait is fixed) and the stun helps to land shatters more often.

I’m very happy with my maim build as of right now. I’ll record some vids of ChoKawaii being cute and rekting faces in ranked solo q.

Pistol is my least favourite weapon, and just like Scepter I don’t like being forced into a strict weapon choice for condition shatter to work. I would rather run untraited Focus instead of Pistol because I find it more fun.

The point is I could play Sword/Torch + Staff perfectly fine before the patch. It was not the most effective build compared with power shatter due to of course not having IP, but I could unload heavy condition burst and be evasive thanks to a larger portion of condition application being on the shatters instead of weapon skills – I just prefer the playstyle that Sword/Torch provides.

I was hoping this patch would bring that build up to the level that power shatter is on while maintaining the evasiveness/mobility and survivability that I find the most fun. If anything this patch has been one step forward (traited Mirror/Blink, IP) and two steps back (severely nerfed condition burst output) making it almost unplayable at times and having many hardcounters.

Now it’s just totally inferior and I won’t accept that.

That’s fine and I am also sorry if I came across rudely and acting in my personal interests. I was (and am) just so greatly irritated at the MtD nerf that I’m venting it in any way to get those 2 torment stacks back. To put it simply my build/playstyle and weapon choice was twice as effective before the patch than it is now.

On a completely separate I must say your posts are beautifully worded so thank you for that.

Exactly – blowing all our illusions should pay off.

At this point I’m flat out refusing to use scepter. Yes I’m going to be playing a pathetic well below average build, but I’m not going to be forced to use scepter with this patch when I was perfectly happy using Sword/Torch + Staff before the patch.

Agreed – I would like to see at least one illusion generation trait per line.

Eg:

Domination – summon a phantasm based on your current weapon when you interrupt a foe (same ICD as phantasm skill so will vary based on weapon equipped while interrupting).

Duelling – DE

Chaos – summon a clone whenever you apply a new boon to yourself or condition to your target (5s ICD?). Must be in combat.

Inspiration – Mental Defence. Could have a second trait such as summon a pDisenchanter whenever you use a healing skill.

Illusions – using an illusion generation skill duplicates the summoned illusion. Could be a grandmaster trait and move one of the existing grandmasters/delete something else.

It is awful how little burst pressure you can put on an opponent now by shattering.

I keep trying to run Sword/Torch + Staff and it sucks so badly compared to pre-patch.

Good suggestions, I am happy with all of those and hope they get implemented asap.

The thing which bugs me the most is before the patch it was possible to play condition shatter without Scepter thanks to the 2 torment stacks.

After the patch it is almost impossible to play condition shatter without Scepter – try not using Scepter (ie Sword/Torch, Focus, Pistol and Staff) and it’s beyond pathetic.

I hate being forced into mandatory use of a weapon when there was more flexibility before the patch.

Hell I even used Greatsword with condition sigils for a while, and now it’s totally impossible.

Currently I’m having to run Sword/Torch + Scepter/Focus which is the compromise that I have to make until MtD is fixed.

No don’t worry, I am not offened.

Everyone’s different after all – I am just very stubborn when I get my teeth into something.

I honestly believe pvp balance is the most important thing, followed by wvw, then dungeon balance, and finally open world pve which in my opinion should not be considered for balance or class changes without going through the above modes first. That’s why I picked on the point you quoted, because I neither believe or accept that point/argument can be fairly reciprocated.

Xyonon.3987:

Well if rangers wont cancel their rapid fire when they see that you use mirror it’s pretty much their own lack of skill and fault. A good ranger will turn around and cancel, so mirror “just” protects you and maybe hits the ranger 2-3 times isntead of the full barrage.

Still great skill though Love it ^^

Personally it’s not rapid fire why I find it so fun but that it really messes with every single reflectable attack on every class, which there’s a lot especially in an outnumbered fight where it’s hard to keep track of them flying all over the place. Especially fun against necros and engineers.

Next elite specialisation after Chrono we need Shortbow.

Then we can run The Dreamer + Inspiration + Unicorn Finisher for good times.

Traited Mirror is the best thing about this patch.

I absolutely love it and it’s the main reason I can’t let go of taking the Chaos line.

I seriously hope they leave it alone because it’s a lot of fun and risk/reward (blowing your heal early to reflect and mitigate damage for example).

Rauderi.8706:

Curunen.8729:

Bad because it led to them killing Maim the Dissilusioned…

It’s a Master trait now. >>
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maimthe_Disillusioned

I know, and also nerfed back to 1 stack which is bad.

Michal.4513:

Dunno i Never played cond Mess until today… i played like 10 games… and just destroyed 80% of players, and done tons of dmg, utility in tema fights… i dont think Mtd need chanages, For me it is almost in perfect state compared to broken Trapers and Burning spammers.

How much of your damage came from MtD (the trait) compared to Scepter, and scepter or staff clones? – I assume you were using scepter (apologies if I’m assuming incorrectly)?

Have you played it without Scepter? I don’t like being forced into using that weapon when I was able to use different weapons pre-patch.

I played with Sword/Torch + Staff, 4/4/0/0/6 and it was much better pre-patch without IP than it is now.

Ineptitude and Blinding Dissipation do not make up for losing that second stack.

Before I answer the questions – the most important thing and utmost priority – fix Maim the Dissilusioned! 1 torment stack is a joke – it needs to be reverted to 2 stacks. If you feel it is too much then reduce the duration from 6 seconds down to 4 or 5 seconds but keep the stacks at 2 per shatter.

Right, now that is said:

1. One sentiment I’ve read is that mesmer has gotten a LOT easier to play. Are you enjoying this?
Yes and no. Yes I like the added quality of life and survivability options, no I don’t like the brainless options where you get huge reward for little effort, and no I don’t like the nerf to Maim the Disillusioned making condition shatter effectively useless.

2. For me, the grandmaster mesmer traits have been an absolute candy store. Which GM traits have been your favorite?
Deceptive Evasion as always.

3. Prismatic Understanding (PU) has proven to be a really strong trait for shatter builds (PU shatter). Do you think this needs adjustments?
Yes – either in the boon/second department or the duration increase.

4. Another build I’ve seen around is a power block/Chaotic Interruption build. Have you tried this out?
Yes.

5. Normally, mesmers really only took Dom, Dueling, Illusions in PvP. Are you taking Chaos and Inspiration at all?
Yes.

6. Mesmer got a lot of conditional recharge abilities (reduced recharge on staff when you have chaos shield for example). Are you liking these?
Honestly? No – I preferred the flat 20% reduction. The only decent one is Pistol.

7. Mimic got a huge change. Are you using this at all?
No – I’d rather use 3 different skills.

Time Warp gained slow and now can be traited for resistance and super speed! Are you using this at all? Would you take this over the other elites?
Cooldown is too long, I prefer traited Mass Invis on 72 seconds.

How have your fights against other mesmers been? Do they feel skillful?
Yes because I’m trying to use the broken Maim the Dissilusioned WITHOUT scepter, and I need every bit of skill to actually be able to kill opponents.

I’m going to keep this very brief because I’m too tired to give you a huge response.

1. “You haven’t played it” – and then suggesting to run around open world pve zones…
lol, I don’t know what to say. I was being polite before but if you seriously think I haven’t run around open world pve zones in ANY build with max condition damage letting clones kill mobs then I don’t know what to say. I have played since launch and gone through pretty much every mesmer build in the game, in both pvp and have casually run around open world pve with them when I want to relax. You suggesting my argument is from lack of experience in a particular playstyle in open-world pve is… well utterly ridiculous. I’m certainly not going to bother making a video showing me running around open-world pve zones demonstrating said playstyle so you’ll have to choose to believe me or not.

You create clones, let them apply conditions, use your weapon skills and avoid shattering – positioning aside that’s all there is to it.

And on your point of not wanting to swap weapons – well that also supports my point of “anything goes” in open-world pve and casual non-intesive play.

2. Phantasms
Did you see the part about buffing our personal condition application skills like Winds of Chaos, Scepter auto, and also adding traited components in to non-native condition weapons such as sword and greatsword (ie what confusing combatants would have been)? Nevermind interrupt and shatter application.

Back to power builds – I would be interested if there were any complaints from power build players who may have enjoyed a similar playstyle to yours that clones deal negligable power damage and therefore cannot be used in this way.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. You, Majic and Cadlarl don’t like my propositions, fine – I completely accept that. But I am not going to change my stance and firmly stand by my belief and opinion on this matter of passive play.

Niminion.1982:

Let’s comprimise, increase the duration by 50% from 6 to 9 seconds. The burst damage stays reduced but the overal damage gets back to 75% of what it was. Or we can go back to 2 stacks for 4 seconds? instead of 6, more burst but only 66% of the original damage.

2 stacks with reduced duration is better.

4 seconds minimum, 5 would be nice depending on what is more balanced.

9 seconds with 1 stack is pointless because it will be cleansed long before then. High intensity spikes with shorter duration are much better than long duration low damage ticks.

So yeah, overall I would happily take 2 stacks for 4-6 seconds (depending on the duration they deem is suitable).

Fixing page bug.

This might sound silly but I actually wish I could play the pre patch version of the game again, even giving up IP, and other little things we have now just to get those 2 stacks of torment back.

Xenon.4537:

Whats the average burn damage? WP posted a video where he got 19k for about 2-3 seconds using every burn duration and proc he could. How is 19k burn different from a 19k backstab or 100blades?

True – I think just the numbers need tweaking, but the concept of stacking it seems fine.

On a related note – funny how MtD doing 3k torment ticks on a golem was deemed “too much”, when looking at all these other sources of insane damage.

Bad because it led to them killing Maim the Dissilusioned…

Windwalker.7421:

While this SS is not about dodges, counter play, L2P, or any of that, I will say that I didn’t dodge because I was out of dodges and F4 was down. It wasn’t a 1v1 duel, but in team play on practice mode.

First off, I had not seen numbers like this since the big damage nerf on Thieves. You kinda have to wonder why Anet didn’t learn the first time around that this won’t fly. It will get nerfed yet again, and will alienate Thief players yet again just as it did back then. Same for Mesmers pulling out 100-0 in under 2 seconds. It’s not gonna last, and it’ll peeve people off when it gets nerfed yet again.

What this thread is really about… MtD nerfed by 50% within hours of going live, REALLY!? As compared to being effectively insta-gibbed with nearly 0 chance to counter play! Bravo! Let’s hear it for balance! lol! Just proves my point that people simply hate Conditions, they hate dieing to them. Including Anet apparently, because you can not possibly be serious in nerfing MtD and leaving Thieves doing 10k HSes at the spam of a single button.

I was at/near full health fighting on the side lines just off a point, I had someone else targeted and BAM, BAM, no endurance to dodge, oh wait F4 is down too! Oh no, BAM! Dead.

This wasn’t a post about nerfing Thieves! It also wasn’t a post to display how beautifully I played it, I didn’t! It’s merely about those numbers being plain whack for the time it took to deliver them! A 10k Heart Seeker is plain stupid. I thought we learned this the last time around. It’s even more stupid in relation to the MtD nerf and it’s completely lacking explanation. This will get nerfed, you can cry L2P all you want, it will get nerfed again just like it was last time.

You couldn’t EVER kill ANYONE as fast as this guy killed me with MtD shatter. No matter how bad the build, how negligent to Conditions/removal you made it, you’d have at least 3-4 times longer to react to your death then I did in that fight.

Even if you took a full MtD shatter burst and were loaded with conditions, you could still completely negate most of the damage with a cleanse, you could use one or more heals to probably live and/or other people would have far more time to cleanse or heal for you! You could pop Resistance if you had it. Never mind all the options you’d have to counter all or most of the burst to begin with. (It’s a multi-step burst! No press 1 button and do 10+k.)

Tons and tons of counter play options even AFTER you took the full burst combo.

“applauds”

Well said.

Windwalker.7421:

The simple problem for me is, in seeing and experiencing damage like that, is digesting the absolute gutting of the Condition Shatter Mesmer by practically removing the MtD trait as a viable trait choice!

I can’t, I’ve still got indigestion from it. :/

I’ll appreciate it if he can put in a word to get MtD restored.

(but I do appreciate the Mirror heal and mantra buff).

Edit: Why am I being so cautiously polite…

No, not put in a word – rather please just fix MtD/restore it to 2 stacks of torment, because currently condition shatter is worse than pre-patch even without IP.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

The biggest loss to me with the patch was effects on clone death, but overall I’ve still seen my kill times improve noticeably due to the condition changes.
Fixing the pistol and scepter traits will help.

I deeply enjoy cloning. Even as a less “fiddly” approach to mesmer than most other builds, it’s still more complex to play than my longbow ranger, for example.
A great deal of clone play depends on your positioning, where you drop your clones, how you manage clone creation. Clones die fast, period. Making sure you keep uptime on your condition application can be tricky, especially when you introduce scepter/pistol into the mix.
It becomes all about timing, knowing where to drop what and what you can get away with…it’s not simple, even if it’s not as complicated as the play Curunen seems to prefer.

Frankly, I’m not sure how anyone gets away with insisting that every possible Mesmer build has to reach some arbitrary level of skill difficulty, that just happens to be greater than other classes.

Seriously, if a longbow ranger can spend the whole fight at the back pounding Quickening Zephyr every time it’s on cooldown, and micromanaging their pet to keep things interesting, and we’re all okay with that, why isn’t it okay for there to be a viable mesmer build that is at least a little closer to that than to a shatter or lockdown mes?

Heck, as I mentioned, even the clone mesmer is loads more complex to play than the simplest builds from other classes.
Why is that not ok?

Curunen, why would you think ruining someone else’s preferred build to favor your own is anything but selfish?

For that matter, why would you believe that allowing clone builds to exist is “stupid” and that no one would want to play such a build, when there are clearly a whole cadre of people who prefer even simpler stuff like longbow ranger?

Majic and I are just two examples of a not-insignificant group of people who like clone-condition play, and in fact prefer it. I just hope that the improvement to the damage output of this build encourages more people to play it and enjoy it.

.
.
. even given how rarely I shatter.

2. Anet deleted clone death.
I don’t see you complaining about that being a “selfish” decision that negatively affected your preferred playstyle.
Was the nerf to glamour confusion “selfish” in that it destroyed that playstyle overnight?

The point is builds are made possible and made obsolete all the time thanks to (often poor) balance decisions – how is my suggestion of removing conditions from clones any more selfish than any nerf Anet has made in the past which has had the consequence of deleting certain build options.

And refer to point 1 above if you’re afraid about damage output – you can keep the same playstyle with the only difference being that YOU and Phantasms have to apply the conditions – not clones. Clones will still work to deceive pve mobs and do non-zero damage to keep an enemy in combat.

Regarding playstyle – deception and positioning requires thought, but passively letting clones apply damage to your target is mindless and requires no thought. Please understand this – it is about the way conditions are applied and how that is distributed between mesmer, phantasms, clones and interrupts/shatters. Changing the distribution to reduce the application from clones and increase it from the mesmer/phantasms/shatters/interrupts has NO bearing on using clones to deceive open world pve mobs. And in pvp or wvw it makes no difference because no one is fooled anyway.
The only difference is in where your condition application and damage is coming from.

I don’t think I need to say any more than this – I feel I’ve been polite and answered both of your posts sufficiently.

Please take time to read all this through and understand where I’m coming from, because I honestly don’t see any issue with my suggestion having a huge impact on your playstyle, any more than the removal of clone death traits has already done.

So let me point out a few things:

1. Anything works in casual/open world PvE.
This should be obvious to anyone playing the game. I honestly don’t understand limiting balance decisions based on both of your playstyle preference in open world pve. If this change was made to clones and your personal weapon skills, auto attacks and phantasm attacks buffed to make up for it, as well as restoring traits like on crit confusion, it would hardly make any difference to your damage output – pve mobs being mindless would still attack clones if they hit first, so you can still use them to “deceive” the pve mobs – the only difference is YOU would be doing the damage with your weapons. Therefore the effective damage output would be equal, but the method of application centred on the mesmer rather than the clones.

The effect of this on things like world bosses would be negligable, providing the buffs are given to mesmer condition attacks to make up for loss of clone damage.

As for not shattering – well this again emphasises my point that anything works in pve.

(see next post – kitten this forum post length limit…)

Firstly let me address this:

Majic.4801:

Before we go any further, I would like to point out that context is everything: I’m just a PvE player who mostly solos (let us now cue the adorably adolescent sneers that invariably emanate from some PvPers and dungeon runners so I can enjoy a good laugh). I will let slip that now and then I feel the urge to head to the Mists, and have great fun when I do, but mostly I just run around Tyria, happily slinging clones with a song in my heart, left and right, to and fro, all the livelong day.

If your concerns are centered on PvP, I doubt you’ll find anything I have to say relevant. But your proposal wouldn’t be limited to PvP, hence my objections.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

I’m pretty much in the same boat as Majic.
I love my clone Mesmer, and I’ve been waiting a long time for a fix to condition damage so I could bring him into more content without feeling worthless (read: world bosses).

I do very little PVP.

I’ll start off by saying no I won’t be “sneering” or condescending about this, however it is extremely relevant to the discussion, not some trivial remark that has no relevance.

(see next post)

Majic and AlphatheWhite – I chose not to reply to this earlier because quite frankly I couldn’t be bothered based on certain statements I read in your posts, but now that you’ve brought it back to the first page I’ll make an effort and reply to both at the same time seeing as you are both saying similar things.

(see next post because it’s too long for one post)

Cadlarl.8213:

That is quite possibly the most intelligent reply I have ever seen. Kudos!

I’m assuming you’re also in agreement with both their points – in which case see the reply below.

Carighan.6758:

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Did you dodge any skill?

That applies equally to MtD application, so that’s not a sensible argument in the comparison.
Even though, ofc, class-to-class comparisons are bogus to begin with.

Yep.

“Oh no, MtD is overpowered!” – nevermind the dozens of ways of avoiding shatter bursts (dodging, evading, blocking, invuln) that every class has plenty of access to, and nevermind condition cleanse totally negating the damage – again that anyone sensible will always take with them.

Yes I am going to harp on about this nonsensical nerf to MtD in every thread until it is reverted. If that takes 6 months for Anet to realise how ridiculous this nerf was, then I’ll just keep going on about it.

FLIMP.8172:

This is not allowed to be on page 2.

Please bring back the original MtD. I don’t want to play a super passive mesmer spamming staff 1 1 1 1 1 50% of the time…

I couldn’t agree more.

MtD nerf was crude, callous and totally misguided – especially when comparing to all the power builds on every class dealing insane damage burst and condition builds on other classes (ie burn builds) dealing equally insane condition damage ticks.

MtD was perfectly fine at 2 stacks, even with IP.

If it’s considered too powerful when used with PU, then for goodness sake deal with PU – I dunno, decrease all condition damage and power by 50% when in stealth, or just reduce the duration and mindless boon spam.

Look at other trait combinations causing issues if necessary but for goodness sake revert MtD to 2 stacks…

I’m glad you are.

Personally I’m not liking iLeap/Swap and I’m hating MtD.

The thing I love most about this patch is traited Mirror heal and of course IP baseline. But I feel for my most recent playstyle before the patch, it is a few steps forward and also a few steps back.

Just felt the need to feedback how annoying this clone summon delay is.

I fought against a MtD mesmer who was using scepter/torch and staff, and I was using sword/torch and staff.

iLeap failing nearly got me killed several times and the pathetic damage pressure when not using scepter meant I was at a huge disadvantage. I relied on shatters for the conditions because sword/torch is mostly utility and defence – but it’s just utterly pathetic how bad the damage is when relying on shatters and ileap/swap compared to before the patch.

I guess there is only one solution – go scepter or go home.

I honestly feel like putting the game down until something is done as a quality of life fix for this delay breaking swap after immediate dodge, as well as mtd of course.

Ithilwen.1529:

@MailMail

I don’t agree. Your wording, “you Mesmers” implies that you are not a Mesmer. Historically, Mesmer has been over nerfed for a long time. So if you wish to be “fair”, you would do well not to advocate nerfing Mesmer now.

MailMail is right. On the other hand you seem to be ignoring that uncontrolled stunlock (via CS and MoD) as well as insane stealth bursts with zero tell (thanks to PU) are neither fun to play nor fun to fight against.

Especially not fun to fight against.

Limits, boundaries and challenge are necessary otherwise what’s the point in playing when you can steamroll everything and have crazy survivability via PU…

No, I can’t say playing condi shatter feels like crushing.

Feels more like a gentle massage to the enemy’s health bar.

tetrodoxin.2134:

They needed this conceptual trait to push the MtD nerf =0

Yeah and then they remove both. :/

Quite funny when thinking about the conceptual +50% torment damage to moving targets on the scepter trait and comparing it with what we have now…

TyPin.9860:

Yeah, it makes no sense to me either. PU is a way to strong trait imo. MtD was alright with 2 torment stacks.

If they should look at stuff, it should be PU. As it stands now, you are better off when hiding in stealth an letting your illusions do the work. The occasional shatter is okay as long as you get the clones back out there fast enough.

MailMail.6534:

I don’t know why PU was buffed at all. Was that necessary? No. I am completely saddened by the gutting of Maim. Condition Mesmer is back to square one: letting clones auto attack and not shattering ever.

I guess I’ll just have to shelve my condition Mesmer completely now since I’ve never found PU to be fun in the least bit.

Both of these, 100%.

Trigr.6481:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

This should put the pickles in your sauce..

Josh Davis.6015:

The release has been out for 4 hours. It’s a little early to tell.

Yet. Maimed gets knee-jerk nerfed so hard that they didn’t even bother to consider if that was the right change to make. Could’ve (and likely should’ve) lowered duration instead.

I agree, I’d be willing to compromise with a duration decrease of maim by say 20%? That’s if they were to give the 2 stacks back. Other wise simply nerfing maim by 50% is way too harsh. Maim having 2 stacks gave the opportunity of condition spike granted you land your shatters. In any ideal situation the possibility of getting yourself and three illusions out to have a full burst is rare. On top of worrying about everything to negate it, dodge, condi clear, etc. This change was not needed.

Countless

And this – I would be ok if they reduced it to say 5 seconds base ( no less than 4 because that would be equally ridiculous when Scepter 2 does 5 stacks for 8 seconds base…) but kept the 2 stacks.

I will keep on about this until MtD is restored and condition shatter is playable again.

MailMail.6534:

And just for the record, I don’t see anything majorly bad about the Power Block nerf. I also didn’t see anything too bad with the Staff nerf except you over-nerfed it when 3% would have been more balanced (basic math proves this). The biggest issue is the maim nerf, because it simply reinforces the trend that has happened with Mesmers since the game came out.

Rinse wash repeat with the devs:

• Quick to “fix bugs” that lessen Mesmer effectiveness.
• Quick to fix bugs on other classes that boost their effectiveness.
• Slow to fix our bugs.
• Quick to nerf our traits/skills.
• Slow to nerf traits/skills of other classes. See Healing Signet & Turrets.

Agreed.

Power Block – ok, understandable.
Staff trait – should be 3%.
Confounding Suggestions – I expect this will be next to balance
PU – it’s too much and encourages sloppy play.

MtD… absolutely ridiculous. It should be 2 stacks.

Josh Davis.6015:

Wanted to clear something up:

Power Block had its damage unintentionally increased with the 6/23 release. The reduction wasn’t a “nerf” – it was a bug fix. It still does the same damage it did before the 6/23 release.

As for Maimed, we wanted to address it before the build went out but we ran out of time. I agree that it would have been better to have adjusted it before you guys got your hands on the new build, but there just wasn’t time. Sorry about this.

For staff cd trait – conditional recharge is something new we’re trying out. The high cd reduction uptime that we were seeing right out of the gate wasn’t something we felt comfortable with. If it feels really weak after this we’ll come back to it and look at it again.

Anyways, as Peters said, we’re keeping a really close eye on everything right now and things will definitely continue to shift as we discover and evaluate how things take shape across the game.

Hope that addresses a few of your questions.

Night!

Thank you for taking the time to reply and braving the forums.

Regarding MtD – as with pretty much all of us here the change to 1 stack has killed condition shatter.

The whole idea of condition shatter was to apply burst condition damage, but now all we can do is mediocre sustained damage which is easily mitigated by any class/build with average sustain and condition cleanse.

MtD condition shatter was much stronger before this patch, without IP. Please reconsider this hasty and uncalled for nerf which has pretty much destroyed the whole idea of condition shatter as a viable playstyle.

Niminion.1982:

There is no condi mesmer without MtD being a strong trait. There is no point in scepter or staff without condi build.

Landing shatters is not faceroll damage like how other classes click a button and numbers fly. Clones take time to create. Clones do not live long in group pvp, clones have a few seconds to run to their target before they fail. Shatter can be dodged easily as you see clones running at you. Shatter kills your passive damage from phantasms and clones. The new IP baseline adds MtD damage but puts the mesmer in melee range.

I seriously don’t know what to do with my mesmer anymore, if I wanted to play a melee power class I would not be playing mesmer. Please don’t me me play engineer or ranger…

Agreed.

I’m actually tempted to reroll melee ranger because it’s a lot more fun than what we have at the moment.

Leodon.1564:

Zmodd.5427:

Silverkey.2078:

@Zmodd, then you loose the stun break which is pretty sweet. Or make the whole skill a stun break which will make it way easier to use (although they would need to reduce the casting time to instant, which they won’t do)

Exactly, merge Illusionary Leap with Swap.

I think you guys are suggesting this change because you are seeing just the benefits of offensively using an iLeap > Blurred Frenzy combo but to make this change would be a nerf to the skill to me and others who use the skill for both offense and defense. Defensively, you can drop an iLeap clone on a melee target (warrior/thief), dodge away/kite to bait gap closing abilities/stuns, and then use swap to juke your target. This is an important ability I use to mitigate melee damage and to make this change would drastically reduce my survivability.

With the way iLeap works right now, you can also use it to get away from another person while fighting near a cliff. Drop clone on target, jump down cliff and wait for your target to jump down also, then swap/teleport back up the cliff.

Absolutely – I love the skillful juking that can be done even after they needed swap to not work without the clone, so I’d want to keep ileap as it is – summon clone on target and then swap to target.

But their explanation for adding the small time delay on summoning a clone is… well I don’t see the point. It was so much easier and more fluid to use before the patch – I don’t know where this whole business of “running to your target and failing to summon a clone” came from that made them add this delay but I definitely find it had made ileap even worse.

So while I appreciate the intention was good, please revert ileap to a faster clone summon. Honestly I don’t care if the clone attacks faster – the whole point is getting the clone out as quickly as possible allowing you to immediately dodge afterwards or something without breaking swap.

What is this doing on the second page!?

I’m determined to keep this in full view until something is done to make condition shatter playable again.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Confounding-Suggestions-Suggestion/first#post5204734

Good suggestion in that thread.

I agree, an ICD is needed – especially with mantras recharging in the background so you can go into a fight pretty much with 4 MoD charges (small delay for manual mantra recharge in the middle) untraited.

It is too much stunlock and I don’t think it’s good for the game.

MailMail.6534:

Before attempting to bargain with the devs, I’d first like an explanation of why the MtD nerf makes sense to them on both a micro (looking just at Mesmer) and macro (looking at MtD compared to other classes) balancing scale.

This literally makes no sense to me. It pushes things back to condition passive play, and even that is sub par at this point…

I’d like this too, but you’ve got a higher chance of receiving every precursor back to back in the MF than getting someone from Anet to explain the MtD nerf in a post in this forum. :p

Levetty.1279:

Every match I have been in tonight has been filled with Engineers who can unload every condition in the game on you in seconds but no its clearly Mesmers who needed nerfing before most people had even downloaded the patch.

Ridiculous.

Nevermind the number of power builds blowing people up left, right and centre.

And condition eles, guardians and whatever…

I’m not going to let this MtD nerf go.

Exactly – condition builds on other classes are insane.

Even at 2 stacks, MtD struggled against some ele builds among other things and I didn’t find it “overpowered”.

I’d sooner delete PU from the game (yes I’m biased) if it meant getting 2 torment stacks on MtD back.

Dan.8709:

MtD is fine, sure they took some of torment out of us, but I still wreck pretty much everyone so it didn’t make that much of a difference to me… And uh, no, I don’t just let my clones attack, I shatter a lot.

Do you use scepter or do you play without scepter?

If you never use phantasms or shatters I can’t see how you’re build is effective anymore – I assume you also used things like Debilitating Dissipation in the past?

Would you be able to share your current build and playstyle so I can properly appreciate why you find it fun?

I find dodging to pop out clones, doing nothing and letting them deal damage is boring. You can’t pretend to be a clone because it doesn’t work – you’re instantly spotted vs any decent player so I don’t see a fun side to it. Of course I’d love the playstyle of pretending to be a clone if the game was designed to allow it…

You’re saying one mesmer – the essence of this thread is reverting the ridiculous MtD nerf which I know many people want, and my personal belief is Anet won’t do it unless we sacrifice condition application elsewhere in return.

Yes my suggestion of nerfing clones is probably only me, but of all the things I would personally trade to get MtD restored, this is at the top of the list. Why? Because clones deal zero power damage therefore it makes sense that they also deal zero condition damage. Unless you suggest that Anet restore clones to do a little bit of direct damage as they used to for a short while.

In all honesty I don’t want any of this to happen – I just want to see MtD restored.

I’m going to paste that in the OP just for anyone else reading this thread.

Ithilwen.1529:

Actually sword /torch would work. It wouldn’t be optimal, but it’d work. The key would be to shatter constantly for the heal and blind. I’m stacking confusion, so scepter is the natural choice. Sword / torch would work though if you kept the shatters coming.

I am playing this http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMF9AJcA-w~
currently in pvp with sword/torch + staff, rabid amulet, traveler runes and it’s not good enough.

I don’t think it’s only not optimal, but simply not good enough to play at all vs all the overpowered builds out there – you can barely scratch eles for example.

My only hope is Chrono with alacrity and continuous shatters, but I’ve learnt not to hope for anything now.

Ithilwen.1529:

Actually if you check my “Glamour Girl” build (#shamelessplug ) You will find it’s condi shatter with Staff as the secondary.

I’m seeing confusion stacks as high as 10 at times and melted a ranger or two. Scepter is definitely the go-to weapon for condi but staff is no slouch.

Talking about “boring” and not challenging is stupid given ANET’s manifest propensity for nerfing Mesmer into the ground. I really don’t want that kind of talk on the forum.

Does it work without scepter? For example using Sword/Torch?

Personally I don’t like to be forced into one rigid weapon set to play condiiton – in this case Scepter/x plus Staff. Currently no other weapons are good enough.

Before the patch I could happily use Sword/Torch and Staff and output good damage thanks to 2 stacks on MtD.

Majic.4801:

Curunen.8729:

Clones don’t do power damage – I don’t see anyone complaining about that in power builds. What is wrong with the idea that they don’t do condition damage?

Because conditions builds that rely on clones to apply conditions do rely on condition damage.

This is, in fact, the very thing you complained about when you said it’s “even more stupid now that it is one of the most strongest options in condition play.”

If you don’t care for it, that’s fine, but I hope you can understand why poisoning the well isn’t going to promote constructive discussion.

You’ve just stated the obvious – does that make using clones to apply conditions skillful or interesting?

Just because clones are required to output decent conditions now doesn’t mean there’s another way to rearrange the damage application to mirror that of power builds.

Did you read where I mentioned buffing mesmer autoattack condition application, phantasm condition application and condition traits such as sharper images and restoring confusing combatants?

In other words the loss of clone damage would be made up with condiion damage from you (the mesmer), phantasms, and skillful play via interrupts and shatters – so overall you should be able to output good levels of condition damage.

This would of course take detailed reworks of weapon skills and some traits, but I believe it would be for the better.

Ithilwen.1529:

Or we could stop being elitists and realize that Mesmer has finally been built with some sustain.

@Levetty I suggest you go with a main hand weapon only if you don’t feel challenged enough. Mesmer has waited way too long to be able to play shatter without being a fanatic with high level game skills.

A truly skillful player would want the class accessible to all, not be threatened that the class is now a bit more playable in shatter mode.

Have you tried playing condition shatter without scepter today?

Did you read what I said about simply preferring MtD was restored and nothing else done?

This is nothing to do with elitism, please don’t mention that word – it’s about trading something to get something back, given condition shatter has been horribly nerfed anyway.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m finally having some decent success playing shatter. If you’re bored please go away but don’t start asking for nerfs.

It DOES NOT make you a “cool” Mesmer to advocate for making the class harder to play.

Please understand the point of this thread – it’s about sacrificing something to gain something back, because I don’t believe Anet will restore MtD without an option to curb condition application elsewhere.

Levetty.1279:

Or how about we revert MtD, leave clones alone and Anet stops pandering to casual hot joiners who don’t know how to dodge or put condi cleanse on their build?

I would prefer this of course – but I’m trying to give another option to make it more attractive to restore MtD.