Now what if I told you raids require condi specced characters. What if I told you condi dps is not reliant on the offhand for sustain. What if I told you that not all mobs have break bars.
What if I told you raids needed a character to be coloured pink to damage the boss or that they needed an “M” in the class name to not get one shot. What if I said can only be hurt by Mesmer shields?
It doesn’t change that for everything else the shield lacks utility and that you will suffer in damage for using it.
Also, if you want to be listened to and responded to I would suggest not making threatening posts to other forum users. No you weren’t being insulting nor aggressive but you were certainly behaving in a threatening manner a few posts back. I would suggest a rethink and edit might do everyone a bit of good and I don’t just mean Daniel.
Threats imply that I can carry out the malevolent aspect of the supposed promise. In situations when one does not hold the power, your version of threat is simply a rhetorical appeal.
Back on topic here is my upgrade then. When you use shield 4 it makes a bubble. Why not make it so that when that bubble ends it is a blast finisher. It makes a reliable blast, and the synergy with phantasma and persistence and mental defense gives you the potential of near constant blast finshers while under fire. Would that be enough?
Yeah, just on the note of condies…
Lets assume that raids absolutely require some condie specced characters. If they do, mesmers will be literally the last choice of every single class in the game to be that condie character. We have the absolute worst PvE condie application, hands down, no contest.
Mesmers will not be condie in raids.
I was under the impression that since condi mesmer can stack torment and confusion equally well it adds up to or exceeds solo stacking bleed.
The point of mentioning raids as well as condi is that the meta is very uncertain at this point. And it seems that in raids you cannot ignore survivability.
Now what if I told you raids require condi specced characters. What if I told you condi dps is not reliant on the offhand for sustain. What if I told you that not all mobs have break bars.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would wonder where you were getting this “info,” considering all of our raid information has been vague in the extreme.
I would wonder if you’re listening to what people are saying, about Mesmer condi in PvE. I would wonder if you’ve ever tried it, to realize that we simply don’t have access to the useful condis in a useful way.
Mostly, I would wonder what any of this has to do with the problems faced by Shields in PvE.
And not all mobs have breakbars? Come one. Many if not most mobs that require a sustained amount of damage in a party setting (aka, any that it’s actually useful to summon phantasms on) had a breakbar in the beta weekends. Just like similar mobs have Defiance in the game as it is now. Even random vets have breakbars in Verdant Brink.
Unless you think we should be summoning iAvenger on the trash mobs, for the 3 seconds before they get burned down?
dulfy http://dulfy.net/2015/09/02/gw2-designing-challenging-content/
Build roles are what you do at a character level. Things like what weapons, utility skills, traits, and even armor you choose to bring to a fight. Some encounters are going to push you to try different weapons you rarely use, some are going to challenge you to select traits you haven’t considered equipping before, and some encounters may even require a member of your group to dust off that toughness gear to bulk up and tank some heavy hits to protect the condition-build players in the back. This is just a tiny sample of the types of build roles we want to push as a core part of Guild Wars 2 dynamic combat.
The entirely of my comments on shield was under the assumption that this was common knowledge.
(edited by Daniel Handler.4816)
However your comment on normal healing output versus the proposed 20% makes me think it would be unwise to have it as a percentage increase as it would boost your output over guard and ele.
Or just make it 15% like the engi trait, yeesh.
But that trait has a 5 ICD. The idea was for a trait without an ICD. Also the engineers despise that waste of a grandmaster.
EDIT:
PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like
You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.
I don’t know where you’re pulling that from, but I’ve literally never said that. I even went and checked my own comments, to make sure I wasn’t having some kind of stroke. That’s definitely not my quote.
Also, yes, blocks could be helpful there. So are evades, and Aegis, and other mechanics that don’t entail the major DPS and utility loss that Mesmer shield currently does.
He’s quoting me on a pvp thread. No, those attacks are not blocked by shield 4 easily. The sniper shot leaves a trail, its most damaging part, that is multi hit. It goes through the first block and still damages you.
He ignored points of that post as well that talked about multiple mobs and aoe attacking you at a time. So an AoE that is pulsing damage per second eats up your shield 4 charge, and the sniper/stalker blasts your face off. The Shadowscale’s Unrelenting Assault is a multihit highly damaging attack that also eats through shield 4 easily.
He didn’t play the beta much.
He also didn’t pay attention to where I have said to make the shield 4 a continuous block like the warrior offhand sword and shield/ranger greatsword until hit by a melee attack. Or to summon the phantasm after channeling the skill for 1 second to put it in line with all other phantasm casts.
Come on dude, try to use your head. Shield 4 has no aftercast so you can block 2 of any multihit. If you add in scepter you can block 4 of any 5 pulse aoe. You talk about multiple mobs and shield 5 has no target limit. You talk about something shooting a projectile that I assume can be destroyed by the shield 5. With alacrity and illusions distortion is now on a 30 second cooldown. You can distort for 4 seconds, 1 more than a warriors shield, and reflect missiles, like a warriors shield. We already had a warrior shield, now we have another one.
It’s hard to reply to something so stupid. The aoe’s pulse per second, the trail pulses per second. You are blocking 2 hits off a multi hit effect that is not a projectile. Distortion destroys your phantasms, so there goes all your DPS.
Shield 5 functions as a line reflect, unfortunately for you the snipers don’t line up all perfectly in a line in front of you for all projectiles to be blocked.
I mean, you just told me to use a scepter in PvE, I’m pretty sure you are trolling.
Your level of civility is about the same as when Pyro had to start posting as Fay. Perhaps you can realise we are both people, and this is a video game.
And if you want to stick to the meta weapons then blurred frenzy and block twice. Preventing the entire attack from harming you.
You’re the one to talk about civility when you passive aggressively tell someone to “use your head”. Apparently implying someone is not using their head is a shining example of proper forum etiquette.
But this is not even true.
We already use defensive offhands in PvE, they’re called focus and offhand sword. The focus is a purely defensive offhand, used for projectile defense and crowd control (iwarden really does mediocre damage and is stationary).
Offhand sword has the same block shield does, on a way lower cooldown, and that block can be turned into a line wide ranged interrupt.
The shield has the same block as offhand sword, and it’s bad because it only blocks one hit. The warrior offhand sword covers all projectiles, as does the ranger block. The mesmer shield block gets popped by a single projectile and then you eat all the damage.
And what do you get in exchange for that 30 second cd block, a garbage phantasm that does no damage and applies 1 second of alacrity and 2 seconds of slow EVERY 8 SECONDS?
So you have a 30 second cooldown (basically double the cd of usual phantasms) on a crappy phantasms, that is delayed on a 2 second cast of doing nothing (DPS loss)?
Neither Focus nor OH Sword are used for personal defense in PvE. Focus is a group reflect tool, if it provided only personal reflects I can guarantee it won’t see any use in PvE; not to mention reflects have a potent offensive component. OH Sword is used for iSwordsman, the highest DPS Phantasm; not for iRiposte. It’s like saying we use OH Pistol as a CC weapon in PvE.
Truely personal defense weapons that are strong in PvP (Staff, Torch) go completely unused in PvE except in specific circumstances.
Shield 4 is actually really potent if built correctly. Assuming you can proc the Blocks easily (which, as I’ve stated, is not the case in PvE) it conjures two Phantasms, which means with Chronophantasma benefits 4x from Persistence of Memory from itself alone (remember it also benefits from PoM from any other Shattered Phantasm). This makes it an excellent Illusion generation tool and greatly reduces its CD. If the Block component had significant meaning in PvE, it would be good.
Even so Shield 4 is potent because of potential low CD blocking and Shatter fodder, not because of the power of the Phantasm. It definitely needs something given we’re sacrificing half of our offensive Phantasms for it.
Offhand sword provides essentially the same or more amount of blocking as offhand shield ovekittenriod of 30 seconds. That’s what I meant by personal defense. Reflection and personal defense are one and the same in PvE where some of your biggest threats are projectile attacks, it’s why I included focus in there.
I probably missed your “personal defense” part but I still want to say that offhand sword and focus offer personal defense options without completely gutting your damage.
2 crappy phantasms and persistence of memory is hardly an appeal, especially since persistence of memory competes with compounding power (9% increased damage) so it’s not included in any DPS centered PvE mesmer build, only on shatter PvE support builds such as the alacrity sharing wells chrono spec.
Asking someone to use their head is not the same as saying what is in that head is stupid. I will repeat. There is a reason Pyro posts as Fay now.
The last part of your post makes me curious.
Do you only care about changes that affect the max dps specs you listed? Let’s make it an offhand warhorn instead.
The four skill is something called tempo, channel for three seconds and blast the group once per second, completing the channel grants aoe super speed.
The five skill is a phantasm that will mimic the birds from ranger warhorn each time it attacks except these are butterflies, they do next to no physical damage but they confuse, weaken, and quicken your enemies.
This warhorn could fix confusion and blasts for PvE. But does it fit into your vision of the game.
I don’t think the warhorn would be particularly bad, because it provides blasts. I likely still won’t use it since it’s a condition weapons and condition mesmers just aren’t viable in PvE since the competitive condi builds in PvE feature heavy burning stacks and lots of frontloaded condi cleave, not slow single target condi ramp up. And due to the nature of mobs in PvE confusion will always be a weaker form of bleed, which is very weak compared to burning already.
My suggestion would be to nerf burning and move that damage back to bleeds. Bleeds at the beginning were designed to be the most damaging condition to ramp up, but burning was the higher baseline damage condition with limited access. Now classes have high to permanent uptime to burning, and it does more damage than bleeds/confusion/torment at all stack levels.
I do think your suggestion would make for a fine pve condi offhand, if condi ever became a thing in PvE. Because like the ranger warhorn, the multihit part means you can proc a lot of bleeds from all those crits on top of the confusion it inflicts. God knows condi mesmers don’t hav very god offhands either.
But as mesmers quite simply staff and scepter are rather ill suited for PvE, and the supporting taitlines of chaos and inspiration, while nice in pvp, don’t offer uch benefit to the pve side of condi builds the way grenadesinister engineers or axe/torch rangers get.
We’re just stuck with power specs for PvE, until they revisit scepter/staff for PvE and make more traits in the Chaos/Illusion lines attractive for PvE, ot to mention the only condition phantasm we have, iMage, has a horrendous 30 sec cd and does a measly 1 stack of burning for 6 seconds.
Now what if I told you raids require condi specced characters. What if I told you condi dps is not reliant on the offhand for sustain. What if I told you that not all mobs have break bars.
Asking someone to use their head is not the same as saying what is in that head is stupid. I will repeat. There is a reason Pyro posts as Fay now.
Just to be clear. The reason why a permanent removal of privileges occurred has absolutely nothing to do with conduct between forum users and everything to do with an explicit violation of the forum terms of service with respect to interaction with developers themselves.
My post was on incivility. Not on which rule you were uncivil for. Also I don’t think you should be making this post anyway. As you are confirming to be in violation of the rule against second accounts and the rule of accounts posting for banned persons.
EDIT:
PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like
You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.
I don’t know where you’re pulling that from, but I’ve literally never said that. I even went and checked my own comments, to make sure I wasn’t having some kind of stroke. That’s definitely not my quote.
Also, yes, blocks could be helpful there. So are evades, and Aegis, and other mechanics that don’t entail the major DPS and utility loss that Mesmer shield currently does.
He’s quoting me on a pvp thread. No, those attacks are not blocked by shield 4 easily. The sniper shot leaves a trail, its most damaging part, that is multi hit. It goes through the first block and still damages you.
He ignored points of that post as well that talked about multiple mobs and aoe attacking you at a time. So an AoE that is pulsing damage per second eats up your shield 4 charge, and the sniper/stalker blasts your face off. The Shadowscale’s Unrelenting Assault is a multihit highly damaging attack that also eats through shield 4 easily.
He didn’t play the beta much.
He also didn’t pay attention to where I have said to make the shield 4 a continuous block like the warrior offhand sword and shield/ranger greatsword until hit by a melee attack. Or to summon the phantasm after channeling the skill for 1 second to put it in line with all other phantasm casts.
Come on dude, try to use your head. Shield 4 has no aftercast so you can block 2 of any multihit. If you add in scepter you can block 4 of any 5 pulse aoe. You talk about multiple mobs and shield 5 has no target limit. You talk about something shooting a projectile that I assume can be destroyed by the shield 5. With alacrity and illusions distortion is now on a 30 second cooldown. You can distort for 4 seconds, 1 more than a warriors shield, and reflect missiles, like a warriors shield. We already had a warrior shield, now we have another one.
It’s hard to reply to something so stupid. The aoe’s pulse per second, the trail pulses per second. You are blocking 2 hits off a multi hit effect that is not a projectile. Distortion destroys your phantasms, so there goes all your DPS.
Shield 5 functions as a line reflect, unfortunately for you the snipers don’t line up all perfectly in a line in front of you for all projectiles to be blocked.
I mean, you just told me to use a scepter in PvE, I’m pretty sure you are trolling.
Your level of civility is about the same as when Pyro had to start posting as Fay. Perhaps you can realise we are both people, and this is a video game.
And if you want to stick to the meta weapons then blurred frenzy and block twice. Preventing the entire attack from harming you.
You’re the one to talk about civility when you passive aggressively tell someone to “use your head”. Apparently implying someone is not using their head is a shining example of proper forum etiquette.
But this is not even true.
We already use defensive offhands in PvE, they’re called focus and offhand sword. The focus is a purely defensive offhand, used for projectile defense and crowd control (iwarden really does mediocre damage and is stationary).
Offhand sword has the same block shield does, on a way lower cooldown, and that block can be turned into a line wide ranged interrupt.
The shield has the same block as offhand sword, and it’s bad because it only blocks one hit. The warrior offhand sword covers all projectiles, as does the ranger block. The mesmer shield block gets popped by a single projectile and then you eat all the damage.
And what do you get in exchange for that 30 second cd block, a garbage phantasm that does no damage and applies 1 second of alacrity and 2 seconds of slow EVERY 8 SECONDS?
So you have a 30 second cooldown (basically double the cd of usual phantasms) on a crappy phantasms, that is delayed on a 2 second cast of doing nothing (DPS loss)?
Neither Focus nor OH Sword are used for personal defense in PvE. Focus is a group reflect tool, if it provided only personal reflects I can guarantee it won’t see any use in PvE; not to mention reflects have a potent offensive component. OH Sword is used for iSwordsman, the highest DPS Phantasm; not for iRiposte. It’s like saying we use OH Pistol as a CC weapon in PvE.
Truely personal defense weapons that are strong in PvP (Staff, Torch) go completely unused in PvE except in specific circumstances.
Shield 4 is actually really potent if built correctly. Assuming you can proc the Blocks easily (which, as I’ve stated, is not the case in PvE) it conjures two Phantasms, which means with Chronophantasma benefits 4x from Persistence of Memory from itself alone (remember it also benefits from PoM from any other Shattered Phantasm). This makes it an excellent Illusion generation tool and greatly reduces its CD. If the Block component had significant meaning in PvE, it would be good.
Even so Shield 4 is potent because of potential low CD blocking and Shatter fodder, not because of the power of the Phantasm. It definitely needs something given we’re sacrificing half of our offensive Phantasms for it.
Offhand sword provides essentially the same or more amount of blocking as offhand shield ovekittenriod of 30 seconds. That’s what I meant by personal defense. Reflection and personal defense are one and the same in PvE where some of your biggest threats are projectile attacks, it’s why I included focus in there.
I probably missed your “personal defense” part but I still want to say that offhand sword and focus offer personal defense options without completely gutting your damage.
2 crappy phantasms and persistence of memory is hardly an appeal, especially since persistence of memory competes with compounding power (9% increased damage) so it’s not included in any DPS centered PvE mesmer build, only on shatter PvE support builds such as the alacrity sharing wells chrono spec.
Asking someone to use their head is not the same as saying what is in that head is stupid. I will repeat. There is a reason Pyro posts as Fay now.
The last part of your post makes me curious.
Do you only care about changes that affect the max dps specs you listed? Let’s make it an offhand warhorn instead.
The four skill is something called tempo, channel for three seconds and blast the group once per second, completing the channel grants aoe super speed.
The five skill is a phantasm that will mimic the birds from ranger warhorn each time it attacks except these are butterflies, they do next to no physical damage but they confuse, weaken, and quicken your enemies.
This warhorn could fix confusion and blasts for PvE. But does it fit into your vision of the game.
(edited by Daniel Handler.4816)
I wouldn’t kick someone unless what they were playing caused a run or match to be nonviable or take far to long. Otherwise whats the point of doing it. If I’m only in it for gold there are other ways to get gold.
I don’t think that’s a good way to look at it though. The trait isn’t supposed to be a primary healing mechanism, it’s supposed to be a relatively small supplemental heal that will compound into something significant over time if you’re producing a lot of healing output. In that respect, 2400 out of 3 mantra channels is a reasonable bonus. It’s increasing your total healing output by 20%, and that’s a measurable impact.
But you can’t produce a lot of healing output. You are taking it so that 2400+3000= 5400 every 15.75 (spamming recovery) seconds is around 340 health per second, + regen would be 400 health per second + 150 (mantra of pain) = ~550 health per second output. Including outside heal in the 20% would give you +143 when by that helpful guard to a total of 693. not too bad
Cleric guard. 144(empower spam) 134 (orb of light spam) +147 (signet of courage)148(guestimation they dodge every 11 seconds)+211 virtue of resolve = ~714 health per second output
-doesn’t waste utility or heal.First: we are not supposed to beat a cleric guard. Cleric guard is amazing at direct support, but does not do anything to enemies. A cleric mesmer can do very high support (very close to cleric guardian) but still have some decent enemy debuff (blinds, boon removal, interrupts…).
Second, by having more than one mantra, you can get additional outgoing healing. In particular, mantra of pain can be spammed ridiculously easily.
I am currently playing a settler interrupt mesmer. The idea is to support through
- mantra healing + condition cleanse
- boonshare + stability on mantra for stomp/revive
- revive (rune of mercy)
- interrupts to debuff the enemy + gain might (to share)
And on average in optimal conditions (courtyard) I have as much outgoing healing and boons than my bunker guardian. But on top, I have additional debuff, interrupts etc… The only thing which makes mesmer a bit less optimal than guardian in direct support is that the healing is not necessarily available on demand. I cannot keep my mantras uncharged to give the healing when needed.
Gonna point out that in the pictures you link you don’t get top healing to others, only top healing to self, which is typical of mesmer. You also get top boons applied to self, which is also typical of mesmer. However your comment on normal healing output versus the proposed 20% makes me think it would be unwise to have it as a percentage increase as it would boost your output over guard and ele.
EDIT:
PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like
You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.
I don’t know where you’re pulling that from, but I’ve literally never said that. I even went and checked my own comments, to make sure I wasn’t having some kind of stroke. That’s definitely not my quote.
Also, yes, blocks could be helpful there. So are evades, and Aegis, and other mechanics that don’t entail the major DPS and utility loss that Mesmer shield currently does.
He’s quoting me on a pvp thread. No, those attacks are not blocked by shield 4 easily. The sniper shot leaves a trail, its most damaging part, that is multi hit. It goes through the first block and still damages you.
He ignored points of that post as well that talked about multiple mobs and aoe attacking you at a time. So an AoE that is pulsing damage per second eats up your shield 4 charge, and the sniper/stalker blasts your face off. The Shadowscale’s Unrelenting Assault is a multihit highly damaging attack that also eats through shield 4 easily.
He didn’t play the beta much.
He also didn’t pay attention to where I have said to make the shield 4 a continuous block like the warrior offhand sword and shield/ranger greatsword until hit by a melee attack. Or to summon the phantasm after channeling the skill for 1 second to put it in line with all other phantasm casts.
Come on dude, try to use your head. Shield 4 has no aftercast so you can block 2 of any multihit. If you add in scepter you can block 4 of any 5 pulse aoe. You talk about multiple mobs and shield 5 has no target limit. You talk about something shooting a projectile that I assume can be destroyed by the shield 5. With alacrity and illusions distortion is now on a 30 second cooldown. You can distort for 4 seconds, 1 more than a warriors shield, and reflect missiles, like a warriors shield. We already had a warrior shield, now we have another one.
It’s hard to reply to something so stupid. The aoe’s pulse per second, the trail pulses per second. You are blocking 2 hits off a multi hit effect that is not a projectile. Distortion destroys your phantasms, so there goes all your DPS.
Shield 5 functions as a line reflect, unfortunately for you the snipers don’t line up all perfectly in a line in front of you for all projectiles to be blocked.
I mean, you just told me to use a scepter in PvE, I’m pretty sure you are trolling.
Your level of civility is about the same as when Pyro had to start posting as Fay. Perhaps you can realise we are both people, and this is a video game.
And if you want to stick to the meta weapons then blurred frenzy and block twice. Preventing the entire attack from harming you.
I think you are reading too much into the phrase he used. He said if the “utility of the weapon.” He did not say it was a utility weapon.
Shield 5 stuns and gives allies quickness. The only defensive value it provides is some buggy projectile blocking.
Shield 4 is a block, but the phantasm gives quickness and slow. The block is the only defensive value.
So Robert is either a kitten-awful designer who doesn’t understand his own design, or it’s a utility weapon first and a defensive weapon second. Which do you think it is, Daniel?
Slow is a defensive condition similar to weakness, you are reducing your enemies’ dps.
Engie shield stuns 5, knocks back, block physical x1, reflects projectiles 3 seconds
Warrior shield stuns 1, blocks physical 3 seconds, blocks/reflects projectiles 3 seconds
Guardian shield knocks back 5, heals, gives protection, doesn’t block physical, destroys projectiles 4 seconds
Revenant shield has no cc, heals, gives protection, blocks physical and projectiles 4 seconds
Mesmer shield stuns infinite, slows, blocks physical x2, blocks projectiles 3seconds+
I would say Robert Gee designed a perfectly good shield. Your concept of defensive value should be called into question.
I am confused about your comment about the mesmer shield being lackluster when in that other post Pyro’s alacrity sharing thing used the shield. It was heavily implied that mesmer would be the new meta.
1. It’s the Wells and Time Warp that do the bulk of the heavy lifting in that build. Further, the build is designed to take advantage of any source of quickness, including speccing a decent amount into boon duration. Shield5 gives quickness, and no other mesmer weapon does. Any build that does not spec into it get less value from it.
2. Furthermore, your point is an old and tired one, I’ve made the point multiple times that it’s not Shield5 that’s the problem, it’s shield4. Mesmers aren’t balanced around 30-second cd boosts, they are balanced around phantasms. That’s why our AAs suck, because phants are supposed to be making up the difference. Saying shield is okay in pve because of Shield 5 is saying that it’s okay that all our damage sucks, because boy howdy, every 30s we get a double-stun and some party quickness!
Mesmers aren’t balanced around speed runs. That other dude was right. You just want equivalent weapons. Create a topic for torch or for pistol; create a topic for staff or for greatsword. But I’ll bite.
What would you design the new shield to do?
It was also implied in the things they posted on raids that builds not entirely devoted to dps would be necessary.
You’re like a broken record. We’ve already covered this, and no one is actively arguing that the pAvenger needs extra damage, we’re simply saying that the loss of damage either needs to be compensated by increased support or it needs to be restored.
… What are you talking about. The only thing I definitely agree with from this is that no one is arguing the shield needs extra damage. How you extrapolated that from a comment meant to imply that in difficult pve content people regularly have to sacrifice dps I do not know.
Do you have any ideas on how to fix Mesmer dps?
See every thread ever made on the subject.
My personal favorites are apharma’s suggestions about nerfing phantasm dps by 30%, increasing AAs by 50%, and giving every phantasm a useful utility bonus.
50% us 50% phants becomes 75% us, 35% phants. So your personal favourite is a 10% damage buff overall and making us rely on our class mechanic less. Isn’t that exactly what the chronomancy spec does?
EDIT:
PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like
You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.
I don’t know where you’re pulling that from, but I’ve literally never said that. I even went and checked my own comments, to make sure I wasn’t having some kind of stroke. That’s definitely not my quote.
Also, yes, blocks could be helpful there. So are evades, and Aegis, and other mechanics that don’t entail the major DPS and utility loss that Mesmer shield currently does.
He’s quoting me on a pvp thread. No, those attacks are not blocked by shield 4 easily. The sniper shot leaves a trail, its most damaging part, that is multi hit. It goes through the first block and still damages you.
He ignored points of that post as well that talked about multiple mobs and aoe attacking you at a time. So an AoE that is pulsing damage per second eats up your shield 4 charge, and the sniper/stalker blasts your face off. The Shadowscale’s Unrelenting Assault is a multihit highly damaging attack that also eats through shield 4 easily.
He didn’t play the beta much.
He also didn’t pay attention to where I have said to make the shield 4 a continuous block like the warrior offhand sword and shield/ranger greatsword until hit by a melee attack. Or to summon the phantasm after channeling the skill for 1 second to put it in line with all other phantasm casts.
Come on dude, try to use your head. Shield 4 has no aftercast so you can block 2 of any multihit. If you add in scepter you can block 4 of any 5 pulse aoe. You talk about multiple mobs and shield 5 has no target limit. You talk about something shooting a projectile that I assume can be destroyed by the shield 5. With alacrity and illusions distortion is now on a 30 second cooldown. You can distort for 4 seconds, 1 more than a warriors shield, and reflect missiles, like a warriors shield. We already had a warrior shield, now we have another one.
I think you are reading too much into the phrase he used. He said if the “utility of the weapon.” He did not say it was a utility weapon.
Whereas he didn’t mention it being a defensive weapon at all; how am I the one reading too far into what the weapon is “supposed” to be, especially since it was introduced to us with the idea that Mesmers take weapons (like shield, GS) and turn them to unusual ends?
Clearly, it’s supposed to be a weapon with access to some Utility, and some Defense. Which is fine, if more than a third (at best) of that utility actually works in PvE. And if the defense aspect is helpful, rather than either buggy or useless, in PvE.
I am confused about your comment about the mesmer shield being lackluster when in that other post Pyro’s alacrity sharing thing used the shield. It was heavily implied that mesmer would be the new meta.
Not unlike your “quote” below, I have no idea what you’re referring to here. If it was something I said, you’ll have to be a bit more specific.
It was also implied in the things they posted on raids that builds not entirely devoted to dps would be necessary.
Edit: I defer to Alpha’s response.
Do you have any ideas on how to fix Mesmer dps?
People more knowledgable than me have spent lots of time discussing how Mesmer dps could be fixed; I’ll let you find those (rather recent) threads and comments in this thread, instead of doing a poor job of trying to restate them for you.
EDIT:
PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like
You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.
I don’t know where you’re pulling that from, but I’ve literally never said that. I even went and checked my own comments, to make sure I wasn’t having some kind of stroke. That’s definitely not my quote.
Also, yes, blocks could be helpful there. So are evades, and Aegis, and other mechanics that don’t entail the major DPS and utility loss that Mesmer shield currently does.
Sorry you responded to a post that was not quoting you. I assumed the person I responded to was responding.
Or you could have politely said you disagree with my opinions on the devs priorities during balance of a defensive weapon. And then responded to the later half of the post which is without HoT out the true value of shield in PvE cannot be fully determined.
Intentional or not, you’ve been falling into a common mode with your posts, taking a PvE focused thread about what Mesmer’s need in PvE, and arguing that “no they don’t, because PvP.”
And while you may be right that there’s some HOT content that will magically change how the game works (I kind of doubt it), the fact remains that from everything we’ve seen of HOT, and everything in the base game over the past three years, the Mesmer Shield will be lackluster in PvE at best, and basically unusable at worst.
Question for others. Because shield has no aftercast before deja vu it seemed like you could chain the blocks, am I correct in assuming that this is not sufficient because people want a block that scales better with attackers?
Either way with mental defense, chronophantasma, and phantasmal persistence one can block two times every fifteen seconds and maintain 50% damage reduction. Plus you are performing two 4 person shatters every 15 as a result. You can toss in scepter and make it 4 blocks every 15. The issue with this is with the damage tied so heavily to phantasm, your shatters are not doing damage that great for meta PvE.
The fact remains that blocks are often-useless in PvE, and single blocks even moreso. The fact that we can have two single blocks in a row is barely better, especially since it’s predicated on the idea of being a Mesmer intentionally standing in front of an enemy’s attack. That’s just not how our class should work; I know that, because they took away most of our Retal traits for that exact reason. 4 blocks, still not that useful. And even if the blocks were at all useful in PvE, we’re accomplishing little or no DPS while they’re happening. A couple phantasm shatters… Well, it circles right back to the DPS issues for Mesmer as a whole, and with this weapon in particular.
Second question. How would you create a balanced defensive weapon for all three game modes given that the devs want to not drastically increase mesmer active defenses? (unlikely to make a block comparable to distortion in length)
Easy: like Robert Gee indicated, it’s not just a defensive weapon. It’s a utility weapon. So make its utility useful in PvE, instead of a hindrance.
Change how alacrity is applied into an AoE around the phantasm and/or make slow even moderately useful in PvE and/or change the Phantasm summon to the beginning of the block, instead of the end and/or reconsider giving us an extremely-low DPS phantasm, when our class DPS is balanced around necessarily having high-DPS phantasms summoned.
I don’t expect the last one, I don’t even know it would be the right choice. But any combo of the first few would make it, maybe not Meta, but certainly viable as a PvE weapon, in the same vein as Focus.
I think you are reading too much into the phrase he used. He said if the “utility of the weapon.” He did not say it was a utility weapon.
I am confused about your comment about the mesmer shield being lackluster when in that other post Pyro’s alacrity sharing thing used the shield. It was heavily implied that mesmer would be the new meta.
It was also implied in the things they posted on raids that builds not entirely devoted to dps would be necessary.
Do you have any ideas on how to fix Mesmer dps?
EDIT:
PS. I don’t like that you make comments that from what you’ve seen in beta shield is borderline unusuable when you make comments in other threads like
You should try fractal 50 or the Verdant Brink beta mordrem. Casual AoE spam from mobs splashing everywhere for 6k+ hits a piece and unlike pvp these mobs don’t fold over/run away at the 15-20k hp damage line.
The Mordem snipers at Verdant Brink on a full reaper shroud necromancer take off the entire shroud and then some more HP in one charged shot.
Things that are perfect for blocking with either 4 or 5 on shield.
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This trolling and derailing of my thread has gotten tiresome. You clearly have nothing to contribute to a PvE thread given your self-important notions of the format, so I’m going to start reporting posts to the mods if we don’t get back on topic soon.
Or you could have politely said you disagree with my opinions on the devs priorities during balance of a defensive weapon. And then responded to the later half of the post which is without HoT out the true value of shield in PvE cannot be fully determined.
Question for others. Because shield has no aftercast before deja vu it seemed like you could chain the blocks, am I correct in assuming that this is not sufficient because people want a block that scales better with attackers?
Either way with mental defense, chronophantasma, and phantasmal persistence one can block two times every fifteen seconds and maintain 50% damage reduction. Plus you are performing two 4 person shatters every 15 as a result. You can toss in scepter and make it 4 blocks every 15. The issue with this is with the damage tied so heavily to phantasm, your shatters are not doing damage that great for meta PvE.
Second question. How would you create a balanced defensive weapon for all three game modes given that the devs want to not drastically increase mesmer active defenses? (unlikely to make a block comparable to distortion in length)
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They didn’t nerf it completely. When you bandage yourself while downed the trait loses its internal cooldown, so while bandaging your nearby phantasms become immortal.
Now if only we could guarantee getting an iDefender right as we go down.
The trait should have an internal cooldown of 0 second, the heal should be nerfed to around 150+.05. And it should work with regeneration. This makes it similar to any of the other regen buffs in the game like from guardian or ele.
Except those regens work whether you’re healing or not. This is an active trait that depends on skill/trait use. If you have regen, sure your idea works, except…that’s quite complicated, isn’kitten Why not just let it be a %?
Percentages are hard. 20% of 12000 (3 mantra traited) is just 2400, almost the same as if you charge the mantra itself. But people are rarely going to blow throw all the mantra charges they have to produce an effect a guard can do in two dodges.
I don’t think that’s a good way to look at it though. The trait isn’t supposed to be a primary healing mechanism, it’s supposed to be a relatively small supplemental heal that will compound into something significant over time if you’re producing a lot of healing output. In that respect, 2400 out of 3 mantra channels is a reasonable bonus. It’s increasing your total healing output by 20%, and that’s a measurable impact.
But you can’t produce a lot of healing output. You are taking it so that 2400+3000= 5400 every 15.75 (spamming recovery) seconds is around 340 health per second, + regen would be 400 health per second + 150 (mantra of pain) = ~550 health per second output. Including outside heal in the 20% would give you +143 when by that helpful guard to a total of 693. not too bad
Cleric guard. 144(empower spam) 134 (orb of light spam) +147 (signet of courage)148(guestimation they dodge every 11 seconds)+211 virtue of resolve = ~714 health per second output
-doesn’t waste utility or heal.
As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.
In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.
Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.
Higher stakes? That’s a good one. Unless you’re actually in a tournament and potentially going to win real world cash, the stakes, as zenith said, are losing to a bunch of pixels.
Additionally, the PvP community is absolutely tiny. Maybe 50 people play competitively for real, across both regions. The vast, vast, vast majority of players in this game play PvE almost exclusively. If Anet wants to focus on their bottom line, that means focusing on PvE, not the barely played game mode of PvP.
I am interested where you get your numbers. Because the public face of guild wars 2 is very much about the pvp side. The attempt to make this esports is very real. Look at the amount of publicity that goes into one mode or the other.
Oh certainly, they’ve been throwing barrels of cash at #esports for years. Despite all the barrels, there’s still one single competitive team on NA, and like 3 on EU. Quite the healthy and thriving PvP scene, wouldn’t you say? Ultimately, you can’t throw barrels of cash at #esports and have it become #esports. The game has to be good enough to be worthy of that level of competitive play. GW2 is NOT worthy of esports level competition, and until it is, esports will never happen, no matter how much cash anet throws at it.
Those aren’t numbers. And their intent remains the same. When you reduce players to pixels you remove the concept of the mmorpg. They have and always will cater to the dynamic content of the game. The market, wvw, and pvp. Why do they care if the dungeon path doesn’t work. You are doing it for gold anyway, and there other dungeons to run, and other ways to farm gold. Don’t treat this game like it is skyrim over LAN. And don’t begrudge the people who don’t have the freedom to reset ad infinitium the content in this game until it stops being a mmorpg.
As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.
In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.
Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.
Higher stakes? That’s a good one. Unless you’re actually in a tournament and potentially going to win real world cash, the stakes, as zenith said, are losing to a bunch of pixels.
Additionally, the PvP community is absolutely tiny. Maybe 50 people play competitively for real, across both regions. The vast, vast, vast majority of players in this game play PvE almost exclusively. If Anet wants to focus on their bottom line, that means focusing on PvE, not the barely played game mode of PvP.
I am interested where you get your numbers. Because the public face of guild wars 2 is very much about the pvp side. The attempt to make this esports is very real. Look at the amount of publicity that goes into one mode or the other.
They didn’t nerf it completely. When you bandage yourself while downed the trait loses its internal cooldown, so while bandaging your nearby phantasms become immortal.
Now if only we could guarantee getting an iDefender right as we go down.
The trait should have an internal cooldown of 0 second, the heal should be nerfed to around 150+.05. And it should work with regeneration. This makes it similar to any of the other regen buffs in the game like from guardian or ele.
Except those regens work whether you’re healing or not. This is an active trait that depends on skill/trait use. If you have regen, sure your idea works, except…that’s quite complicated, isn’kitten Why not just let it be a %?
Percentages are hard. 20% of 12000 (3 mantra traited) is just 2400, almost the same as if you charge the mantra itself. But people are rarely going to blow throw all the mantra charges they have to produce an effect a guard can do in two dodges.
My intended version (one that activated on heals from allies as well) seems to be encroaching on the original. so to avoid the same problem I would actually combine the ideas.
30% of any healing received is given to allies. Effectively you are increasing the outgoing healing of everyone around you by 30%. So with regen +doylak + life steal you out heal 211 per second, which is roughly the same as a traited guardians virtue of resolve.
They didn’t nerf it completely. When you bandage yourself while downed the trait loses its internal cooldown, so while bandaging your nearby phantasms become immortal. That being said that is a bug. The trait should have an internal cooldown of 0 second, the heal should be nerfed to around 150+.05. And it should work with regeneration. This makes it similar to any of the other regen buffs in the game like from guardian or ele.
In terms of boon share. The mesmer is able to share all boons in the game, and alacrity. When you add in chronomancy, you can share all the boons in the game for at least 10 seconds.
As for the other stuff, I think one problem is that english isn’t my mother tongue. I think the way I said “most PvE” means something else to me than it does to you, which could very well be.
I meant to indicate that I am fine with a weapon which excels, say, at group interruption for mass-enemy events and on-demand power so long as I have another choice which provides, say, single-target interruption on a lower CD and steady power. Every weapon needs their niche, and one not having one is a problem, but I want weapons to have that niche.I am more okay with that perspective. However, I think that choosing a pvp-only niche (or at least, a low-pve niche) for a weapon as important as Shield is a big design mistake. And frankly, it’s an unnecessary one.
In short, I think if they’ve given Shield a niche that excludes PvE value, they’ve made a mistake, one that can be rectified as there is easily room for a defensive weapon niche compatible with both PvE and PvP. In this particular case, tuning the iAvenger to provide better support is both thematic and valuable, and need not be overpowered in pvp.
Being frustrated over speed clearing a dungeon is not the same as being frustrated over losing a fight in wvw, or a match in pvp. People in pve have the freedom to retry scenarios, it would make sense the developers would concentrate on situations where the stake are higher. Also we have only seen some of the new pve content, it would be assumptive to declare shield inferior without seeing all the new stuff in HoT, especially upcoming raids.
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I will admit a number of things then.
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Honest question, who here in this discussion played a revenant in PvE? Did Daniel play one?
Because I see a lot of downplaying of the class going on and having played it myself I’m curious if that’s coming from personal experience.
Please no more. I will say I was wrong on everything if we can get back to OP discussion on boon uptime, mesmer vs revenant.
Theoretically what is the max a chromancer can sustain all the boons in the game.
Another issue with stability countering it is that it is not an actual CC. It doesn’t interrupt skills, only displaces where they go off.
I think that’s the main issue. It isn’t a hard cc because it doesn’t interrupt skills, its not a soft cc because its not a condi. I like it because it places emphasis on range. This is the one area where cleave is not superior.
The tablet moving animation should be as fast as super speed.
All new dodges are affected by camera angle. Some of them even stay in place not moving anywhere. Seems like lazy design of new dodge- instead of modifying dodge, dodge is replaced by skill with evade.
It was super painful to dodge three times with dash and only go 200 feet.
forum bug. sigh
You know you get infracted for reposting the same thread a mod closed, right?
And your perception that Mesmers are perfect screams L2P. Some people have solid, detailed arguments about what aspects of Mesmer need to be worked on / looked at from the perspective of not just one class and can present them in a way that opens for discussion. Give actual examples, rather than “active defenses need toning down.” Give comparable numbers rather than “too much stealth.”
You make an ambiguous nerf thread and then are surprised when people argue with you? Dude.. What’re you doing?
That being said. The fact that this community argued to the point of causing mod intervention is a little disappointing.
The distance given by dash and by bound are mostly incorrect, due to the texture on the ground causing it to shorten. Impaling lotus can be double dodged as two overlapping dodges, spending 2 endurance bars but taking you half the distance away.
Dash and bound are too affected by camera angle. Its helpful for heartseeker when you want to stack stealth. Its not helpful for when 3 dashes go 300 feet.
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Dash frequently goes less far than a normal dodge.
Edit: Dash is affected by camera angle, so is bound. Its useful for heartseeker, its not useful for a dodge.
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I just seems so weak.
Except the revenant doesnt share boons it pulses them.
The revenant has a lot of on demand utility. But as a result it is generally inferior to its the counterparts from the main classes.We have access to all boons in game. Revenant does not. We can share quickness, vigor, resistance, retaliation, aegis better than it.
I made a revenant and a Chronomancer. The Chronomancer was the superior boon support by far.
lol I’d love to know what dps build you’re running that’s giving your allies 10 might and perma fury.
you get perma fury from the dueling tree, and might stacks of that high or greater from illusions + strength runes/pack runes/travelers or frequent greatsword+ that trait. then just use the signet 1-4 times and tada.
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Except the revenant doesnt share boons it pulses them.
The revenant has a lot of on demand utility. But as a result it is generally inferior to its the counterparts from the main classes.
We have access to all boons in game. Revenant does not. We can share quickness, vigor, resistance, retaliation, aegis better than it.
I made a revenant and a Chronomancer. The Chronomancer was the superior boon support by far.
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It seems I have to reiterate these points.
There is ele, engie, and thief. They self combo, its part of their class, and their blast finishers are helpful yes, but these classes don’t have everything on them.
The thief doesn’t use its blast finisher to the degree of the others.
Moreover, Mesmer replaces thief and engie in the wvw meta. Is just as common as all of them in the pvp meta. This seems to be about pve.
In pve, Mesmer is glanced over not because of its fields or finishers “Guardian and Mesmer fit the same role and sometimes Mesmer does it even better, but Guardian is easier and has better upfront burst.” Adding blasts won’t increase their inclusion. Fixing phantasms will.
So in pve, it is a moot addition. In wvw it won’t be used anyway because you can’t be in the melee train. In pvp, will just give the meta mesmer build more aoe blind and protection for themselves.
The entirety of the trap burst relies on them having bleed. Please don’t neuter the traps.
From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.
We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.
How about rangers having only one blast finisher Warhorn5?
You’re in the wrong forum.
I don’t even think Robert is the dev for Rangers, is he?But he is absolutely correct. Blast finishers are not the end all of a class. I don’t understand the emphasis being place upon them.
Rangers aren’t in a good place right now, I don’t know why you think this would support your premise. Indeed, Gorisek was complaining about the lack of blast finishers, not bragging.
I don’t think he was bragging. I am saying that he is absolutely correct his class has one blast finisher (technically two with traits), and in my opinion it is not the end all of the class.
Seriously justify for me adding a finisher that would make sense in a solo encounter. All of the other classes except perhaps warrior have finishers that match their class. Adding blast finishers wouldn’t change anything if you end up in a group with “inadequate” fields.
I will repeat. Fire fields and water fields only give might and healing. I am so tired of people who think 25 stacks of might and sudden burst healing is all this game is about. It is a important part, but it is already managed more than fine. Second you have things like PS Warriors or the new Revenant that can out might and out heal those fields.
What I see happening if we followed this discussion is Mesmer with perma chaos armor on themselves and their clones. This would make them way more tanky, effectively overriding the 1 second limit on debilitating conditions from the aura. Which is absolutely fantastic when you consider phantasmal defenders exist. Then more anger from the professions on the already “untouchable” mesmers who now perma cripple, blind, and confuse.
From a design perspective, Mesmers are more about providing fields and less about activating them. It’s not just blast finishers, Mesmers lack reliable sources of many other finishers too. Necromancers fill a similar role. By contrast you might notice that Warriors have lots of finishers but not many fields.
We don’t always get this balance right (and I think there is a different discussion to be had about when we don’t) but I hope that clarifies what we were going for in the case of Mesmers.
How about rangers having only one blast finisher Warhorn5?
You’re in the wrong forum.
I don’t even think Robert is the dev for Rangers, is he?
But he is absolutely correct. Blast finishers are not the end all of a class. I don’t understand the emphasis being place upon them.
Group utility is not the pinnacle of skills. But go on calling people disingenuous. I’ll continue watching pvp games where the whole game occurs without a single water field being blast.
Water fields are somewhat less commonly used in PvP. On the other hand, the self-blasting of fire fields is the primary method by which celestial elementalists produce their extraordinary might upkeep. Attempting to argue that blasting fire fields doesn’t have a profound impact on PvP is…foolish.
If you are going to balance around a single build on a single class then that would be your unwise decision. Boon conversion was added to the meta and the build itself is going to be nerfed soon anyway.
I’ll continue to duel thieves and neither of us blast might or water fields.
Quite so. However, thieves rely on leap combos through smoke fields for the majority of stealth upkeep in many builds, which, you might have noticed, was one of the other fields I mentioned as quite useful.
A response that I could easily retort by changing the example to Mesmer and Necro. Or any class that is not an Ele, an Engie, or a Thief.
Don’t really care. This seems only applicable to WvW.
Water field blasting is primarily limited to WvW. This is mostly because you don’t actually need that kind of healing in any other game mode. However, I find it curious that you’re completely discounting the existence of an entire game mode. Do you care to explain why you feel that WvW isn’t important in GW2?
Because the game isn’t balanced around an individual game mode. Placing importance on one mode leads to shortages in the other.
Are you arguing for a specific game mode?
You do indeed seem to have willfully forgotten how elementalists maintain their might stacks. I recommend keeping more abreast of the current PvP meta, it might be enlightening for you.
I don’t find that one build on one class in the meta is a requirement to buff everything else. What is more likely, as the elementalist forum itself predicts, that build will be nerfed.
So is portal when used properly, or stealth, or moa. Yet we criticize the other classes who make posts asking to get their own version of the portal skill.
So you’re comparing utility only available on massive cooldowns to generic combo fields + finishers that have a variety of availability across classes? Seems like a bit of a lopsided comparison to me.
Remember that many times cooldown is indicative of strength. There is reasoning behind Moa having a higher one than shake it off. Added to this is as you said the “variety of availability” across classes. Many elementalist would give up the evasion and fire field of staff 4 in fire attunement if they converted it into a blink instead. We have finishers as well. You just don’t like our fields or our finishers it seems.
direction was to list the fields in order of importance. Not to write snarky heavily Mesmer biased criticism.
Of course, but I felt it important to provide a bit more commentary on my decisions for the usefulness of fields. I’m sure it won’t be too taxing on your part to order them properly…
This one required comment though. I do not think you understand this field. Calling it incredibly hard to use effectively borders on falsification.
So what you’re trying to claim is that the light projectile/whirl finishers, which cleanse allies they pass through, are easy to use? In that case, kindly tell me the last time you were able to aim a whirl finisher. Additionally, explain the method by which you’ve reliably shot projectile finishers that are necessarily targeted at enemies through your allies without either pure luck or an extraordinary amount of coordination for a slight benefit.
It is the basic skill behind using focus. You summon the warden and lay the curtain between its feet. Anyone in melee range of this will have at least one condition cleansed. Similarly doing curtain and then either magic bullet or mirror blade while in melee range works as well. Mirror blade is especially potent as the multiple bounces will remove more conditions. And for cross class coordination it is extremely easy in zergs for a wall of reflection and rangers to pew pew through it, cleansing things on their way. A guardian using hammer will be cleansed any time his ally shot a projectile finisher at the thing he is smashing.
Powerful stealth maneuvers… really? Because as far as I know two PU mass invis will do the trick.
Mass invis will only stealth 10 people, and it’s on a 90s cooldown. Blasting smoke fields can neatly bypass that target limit without difficulty. Additionally, it allows you to obtain mass stealth without forcing anything more than a thief to drop pistol 5 or smokescreen, compared to the rather significant trait investment necessary for a mesmer to stealth many people for a time.
It isn’t a significant investment when most of the time it would have been done anyway. What is significant is wasting all those blast finishers. Both are done in zergs. The mass invis is preferable because it doesn’t carry of the risk of revealing people when they hit someone with the skill that generates that finisher. Some groups drop the thieves entirely.
More like rudeness. I don’t know what game mode Pyro plays. It seems like Pve. Because in WvW they don’t care about my blast finisher, and in PvP they dont care about my blast finisher.
Yes, that’s because you functionally don’t have a blast finisher. If you did, however, you’d be expected to blast fires and waters along with everyone else for the enormous group benefits it provides. Instead, you just tag along being useless whilst everyone else is contributing at that point.
Some people contribute in ways the others cant. Necromancer and Mesmer are the only ways to remove boons at this point. No one can do everything. And the synergy of combo fields and finishers is not as central as you would believe.
We use feedback, and we time warp. Incidentally they are ethereal fields that people can benefit off of. Your version of usefulness leaves much to be desired.
Yes, feedback and time warp are very nice. I’m glad you can enjoy being wanted for the singular purpose of pressing a couple of buttons and then relaxing for the rest of a fight.
Also, tell me the last time you heard someone say ‘someone drop an ethereal field so we can blast it!’. Ah, that’s right, that’s never happened.
The classes will never be equal. The fields will never be equal. If you were to do that you would buff the classes that have a certain field extensively.
Never fear. It still works if you use mirror blade.
The swap in and out of Torch to scepter is plenty of blast for me, considering I provide different skills, Feedback, Timewarp. Mesmers are not considered unviable, they just tend to be incompetent players in pve which lack skill. :P
Different strokes for different folks I guess. You prefer to be useless, I prefer to be useful.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh burrrrrrrrrrrrn.
More like rudeness. I don’t know what game mode Pyro plays. It seems like Pve. Because in WvW they don’t care about my blast finisher, and in PvP they dont care about my blast finisher. We use feedback, and we time warp. Incidentally they are ethereal fields that people can benefit off of. Your version of usefulness leaves much to be desired.
Just as a quick note:
Saying that you can get might and healing elsewhere other than fields is disingenuous verging on flat out falsification.
Group utility is not the pinnacle of skills. But go on calling people disingenuous. I’ll continue watching pvp games where the whole game occurs without a single water field being blast. I’ll continue to duel thieves and neither of us blast might or water fields. You seem so caught up in the rhetoric that you forgot to check if your words actually make sense.
With a water field, one field can be dropped and then blasted by many people at the same time. Not only does this avoid 5 target aoe limits (as each blast has a separate limit), it also provides burst healing on a scale that’s not even remotely accessible otherwise.
Don’t really care. This seems only applicable to WvW.
Might is a similar situation in that spamming blasts on a field can stack many people up to 25 might, a feat that can’t be accomplished in any other realistic way. Additionally, stacking 25 might at all is more or less limited to a PS warrior or spamming blasts on fields. Since PS requires hitting mobs, the only viable way to stack 25 might on a group out of combat is with blasting a fire field.
Are you arguing for a specific game mode?
No matter what way you look at it, fire and water fields are uniquely powerful in this game, and nothing else even comes close. They provide unique and extremely powerful capabilities when used properly.
So is portal when used properly, or stealth, or moa. Yet we criticize the other classes who make posts asking to get their own version of the portal skill.
The direction was to list the fields in order of importance. Not to write snarky heavily Mesmer biased criticism.
As for the fields…
Poison: Useless. Weakness is easily obtained with other skills, and poison projectile finishers are underwhelming.
Light: Awful. The light aura is low duration and really niche, can’t be shared easily, and doesn’t really have noteworthy effects. The projectile and whirl finishers are incredibly hard to use effectively.
This one required comment though. I do not think you understand this field. Calling it incredibly hard to use effectively borders on falsification.
Dark: Awful. Why waste blast finishers to do aoe blindness when there are so many other ways of doing that? The life steal mechanic is really weak too.
Lightning: Blasting this gives incredible access to group swiftness. The other effects are less noteworthy.
Ethereal: Chaos armor is okish, but if you’re blasting for chaos armor, you could instead be blasting for might/healing, which would be better.
Fire: Obviously fantastic.
Water: Also obviously fantastic.
Ice: It’s ok. The frost aura defensive boost is very significant, but it’s difficult to maintain in any realistic fashion.
Smoke: Fantastic. You can accomplish extremely powerful stealth maneuvers by blasting smoke fields that can’t be done any other way.
Powerful stealth maneuvers… really? Because as far as I know two PU mass invis will do the trick.
Please don’t criticize someone for being disingenuous, and then make a post filled with exaggerations.
I was under the interpretation that dervish magic no longer works so they all became ritualists who practiced in the style of dervishes. Instead of channeling spirits they become avatars of them.
Phantasms still pick up stats from golem. Being full zerker and having 3 Phantasms out is like having a second golem.
The number and type of fields are part of class design. If you want to get more competitive fields be prepared to give up stuff from mesmer.
I have to wonder if you even read what I say, or if you did, how you could misinterpret it so grossly.
Let me clarify by retorting to your childish drivel considering the Mercedes (clearly a Pinto but whatever) and the fire fields.
I clearly said I don’t want fire fields, or more blast finishers even aside from maybe 1 working/usable one on either GS3 or making the Torch one actually useable.
What I said was I want ALL combo fields that are currently clearly inferior to the likes of Fire & Water, to be boosted in some way. I even said, I don’t care if this boost is fairly minor and leaves Fire & Water kings, as I don’t want to copy what they have and they clearly cover some of the most important aspects of PvP combat.
What I am saying is make the Light Aura not terrible, for example. Boost all the current effects on Light, Etheral, Dark, etc. to get something, anything at all, to bring them just one step closer to Fire and Water (and Smoke).
That’s how you balance abilities. You don’t create 2 God Mode combo fields, and put utter crap on the others, and then leave it like that forever! That’s stupid! There is nothing wrong with making all combo fields slightly more competitive to each other. This is not going to make Mesmers Blast their Etheral fields for 25 stacks of AoE Might, nor will we be blasting our Etheral fields for multiple free heals.
I’m talking, add a Boon and/or Condition here or there to each of the sub-par fields to bring them up a notch. Then wait and see, let it play out, and if it’s still bad then revisit them again 6 months later.
Cram your Mercedes crap, no one is asking for Fire/Water Fields here that I’ve seen.
It’s about a legitimate complaint that the one Blast finisher we have is clearly unusable in a tactical way, especially with PU, and that the fields we have access to are often not a boon but a detriment to our teams!
You misinterpret comment order in that you think the Mercedes comment is in response to you. The metaphor is that I see nothing wrong with the situation. And it’s the sub par field attitude I don’t like. The quality of water and fire fields is balanced by lack of access to certain mechanics. They provide healing and might these God mode fields. Such things can be obtained elsewhere.
As for your other comments I will repeat my previous response. What are you willing to give up for more competitive fields.
Buffing ethereal or light fields as you would suggest would be a direct buff to mesmer or guardian. Any field you buff, buffs the class with the most access, which is not balance.
But since you think this is drivel I’ll bite. Rank the field in order of importance. Let’s see how practical your balance is.
Poison
Light
Dark
Lightning
Ethereal
Fire
Water
Ice
Smoke
Due to the number of things entirely unique to mesmers, I find finishers and fields to be entirely trivial. I understand how useful some of these other fields are. But it just feels to me like a rich kid crying that his father got him the wrong color Mercedes.
“eww we have all these ethereal fields. I know that almost no other class has them and none with our number, but I want a FIRE field.”
Yeah, mesmer is totally Mercedes in PvE, not a Toyota. Clearly words from a bitter pvp guy on the “Mesmer OP QQQQQ” bandwagon.
When did PvE come up? If PvE were the problem then it wouldn’t matter as people have 25 stacks of might anyway in dungeons. The issue is granting redundancy of certain mechanics but not others. You can’t give all the classes fire fields unless you can give all the classes stealth.
I also reject the concept that mesmer is somehow not a working car because it lacks fire fields. The problem with mesmer in pve was aoe and damage modifiers, neither of which would be touched by gaining a water field.
Lastly. That I would be on the Mesmer OP QQQ bandwagon is interesting. Please continue along that trend.
Jess Lebow: Guild Wars is always evolving. The story documents change daily. We try to develop game mechanics to match the plot points in the story, but oftentimes it works the other way around, as well; we create new and parallel storylines around fun gameplay. In Sorrow’s Furnace, for example, players will encounter something we call Pulverizers. These are just what you would expect&#Array;giant pieces of mining equipment that can smash a player (or anything, for that matter) to smithereens. The original story documents for the Furnace didn’t include any smashy stuff. But they were so much fun that we rewrote the story to include them, seamlessly working them into the rest of the environment.
Anyone can quote text. While your interpretation of the email is correct. It differ from ones in the things you source. But keep portraying him as something more than one who outlined a story.
This is so cringe worthy. I feel really bad for the devs. When you get to the point that you are using phrases like melting your face it just becomes too awkward. Maybe remake this post and be more more informal. This post will be deleted anyway because threads directly addressing developers are against the rules.
Due to the number of things entirely unique to mesmers, I find finishers and fields to be entirely trivial. I understand how useful some of these other fields are. But it just feels to me like a rich kid crying that his father got him the wrong color Mercedes.
“eww we have all these ethereal fields. I know that almost no other class has them and none with our number, but I want a FIRE field.”
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