Guild Wars 2

Perhaps you can instruct the community to have a non biased approach then. Clearly all these arguments are all mesmer biased. I am a mesmer too, but wouldn’t it be better to have a non biased approach?

Also the argument the one I quoted was saying that necro elites synergizes with the build so making it kinda build based, so I said that MoA is not build centric, which serves it purpose regardless of the build, is that wrong?

Some of these arguments have mesmer bias some do not.
And your approach has never approached non bias in reasoning. Reminder that including a true statement in your argument does not make the whole argument correct. Mesmer elites are not build centric, but Moa is not better than Lich. All of the transformations, except for Moa have aoe benefit. Mass invisibility has aoe benefit. Why would I want a skill that only kills one opponent at the expense of losing mass invisibilty. Supcutie has stated that for the most part MI is preferable to Moa for the res benefit. If I have a skill on 180 CD I want it to be game changing. I place Moa in the same space as the elite Thieves Guild for thieves, it’s a good skill but there are SO many better options that aren’t as niche. Lich is nice and when executed perfectly can kill 2-5 people. I’ll be speaking to Chaos about whether such an appointment was justified, clearly you have the communities interests at heart. I’ll also instruct the community at large that they need to “have a non biased approach”.

Whatever happens it has to have one hundred percent immunity of some sort or it defeats the purpose of the trait.

Bump. Kinda gonna keep bumping it until ANET addresses it or the forum mods tell me to stop. Because it is super sad when you want to use something like mantras but you can’t use them effectively cause you don’t know how many charges you have.

StickerHappy.8052:

cyyrix.6105:

StickerHappy.8052:

Windwalker.7421:

No contradiction at all. I didn’t even entertain your suggestion to change it, because it is based on the completely false premise that Moa is even close to comparable in effectiveness as Lich. If either of the two needs a nerf, it sure ain’t Moa.

So none of my statements are addressing your suggestions, but rather are a response to the ridiculous notion of nerfing Moa in order to help Lich, which is clearly the far better of the two Elites.

Moa is more effective than lich, how? cast it from stealth you get an unavoidable moa, no tells, no counterplay. Unless they get a lucky dodge or block.

Lich on the other hand? Reflects eat lich alive, (which we have a lot), lich can be stripped on stab (making him susceptible to CC for a short period of time), You can just runaway from lich, you can LOS lich, you can immob lich then runaway, I mean this should be a no brainer, Lich is very squishy as kitten.

I mean come on, I am not defending necro by any chance, I would rather be constructive and fair on arguments If I were you. I do not want to sound like the thieves forum.

You are saying Lich is better than Moa? how? Do you see a condimancer run lich?
Moa can be ran by any mesmer build and still produce very effective results.

Necros have elites that synergize with their builds. Condimancers don’t run Lich because Plague exists. It’s weird that you’re using that as an argument for mesmer elites being more effective. I’m sure condi mesmers would love to run an elite that spammed conditions instead of Moa Morph.

Also, stealth casting Moa Morph is not a guarantee. Even if it was, that means it takes an extra CD just to land the skill.

Not a guarantee because of lucky dodges? lol. So what if it takes an extra cd to land it? locking someone down from his original skillset for 10 secs is worth it.

Builds you say? Dude, MoA is useful in any situation or build in pvp, Why would condi mesmers take an elite that spams condis with all the condi cleanses going around? IF YOU DISAGREE, why is that condi mesmer is not meta?

“Necros have elites that synergize with their builds. Condimancers don’t run Lich because Plague exists. It’s weird that you’re using that as an argument for mesmer elites being more effective.” <————Your argument is the one which is weird, if CondiNecros had MoA, I bet you they would take it over plague.. The main point is that Necros don’t have that Elite that is useful regardless of the build like MoA. Don’t use the Flesh Golem rebuttal, for all we know AI is in a bad state in this game.

10 seconds where the whole team can gang up on that target? Yes please. Also Mesmers in general have the best elites in the game if not the best.

I would say that plague is a really crappy elite, when a necro pops it, he is a floating “HIT ME” sign like lich, blinds and the stomps are the meaningful pros of it (out of desperation only or need since why would you risk a safe stomp in normal circumstances for 180 secs). Plague is a joke.

Couple of problems with this post. First you and TyPin are remarking on the unreasonable attitudes found in this thread, yet you frequently respond to that variety of post. There are a number of reasonable posts you somehow overlook in your quest to move the conversation forward.

Second in your attempt to move the conversation forward you use fun words like crappy and kitten. I call it the Pyro affect/effect and it makes the thread about responding to perceived character attacks or lousy attitudes. If I wanted to read people writing LOL in response to a post I would look for a teenager. I wouldn’t be searching for it in the posts of a newly appointed OMFG officer. Someone who should be socializing with community, not getting into silly arguments.

Third, your hyped up arguing over how bad something like Plague is makes me sad. It allows someone to survive a three vs one assault on a point until hopefully assistance can arrive. Moa only fully locksdown one target. Lich has the potential to wipe a full team, Moa does not.

You need to decide for yourself whether this is a debate or a discussion or an argument. And whether you want it to be what it is right now.

One of my Mesmer comrades has poor eyesight. It makes it difficult for them to tell what charge their Mantra is on. The request was that an additional charge number could be placed on the skill icon itself so it would be easier to see. There would be no confusion because a cooldown ticks, and colours the skill icon black until the cd finishes.

That was their request.

My request is that this is not going far enough to just change one skill. The entire UI should have some option for resizing or changing to accommodate not only those with visual disabilities, but also the players who simply find some aspects intrusive. For instance when I have too many buffs I have to decrease the size of my map in order to see them all.

So the questions for this thread are both for anet and for the player base.

1. (For anet) Is there anything in development to assist players with visual disabilities?
2. (For both) What about your gaming experience has been affected because you were unable to resize or move aspects of the UI?

Arena Net can we please get a remark? Also OP you could possibly change the title to indicate what is going on better. Like “Change UI for those with poor eyesight?”

Sorel.4870:

Daniel Handler.4816:

And the only non racial elite with a higher cooldown, Moa cannot counter. Looking at you Battle Standard. I think it should remain as it is.

It can actually. In a clutch team fight, if the warrior has stability and I am not sure I can strip it, I sometimes moa him while his team mate his downed. Granted, he still has his banner, but both him and his team mate are dead at this point.

edit: and you forgot the almighty Mortar.

I am referring to countering the actual skill, as in putting it on full cooldown and removing the effect. Mortar is not a true Transform, although the game can sometimes process it as a transformation.

I will not stomp bumping this.

tobascodagama.2961:

Seems like a reasonable request. The only objection I can think of is that the mantra counters in the location you proposed could be confused with cooldown timers.

Not really, cooldowns make parts of a skill icon turn black. Either way they should come up with something to help people like the OP.

TyPin.9860:

Exciton.8942:

Yes, moa hard counters lich.
But you should never look at balance by looking at two skills only.

That’s not what I am doing. Is it not, that the most common Mesmer build u find in PvP simply wrecks power necro (which is the only kind of necro that uses Lich, as far as my experience goes)? I do with my shatter and I have been wrecked many times over as power necro by shatters. Not even taking the Lich-Moa interaction under consideration. So how does Moa now contribute to this balance?

@pulsing stability:
To say that makes Lich immune to CC is simply wrong. Again, I have repeatedly interrupted/dazed Lichs on a double ranged shatter build alone both in PvP and WvW.

I gathered so far that the majority of Mesmers here would not support my idea. That is totally okay (although u are all wrong and you all will suffer the wrath of grenth^^). But what throws me off is that the same falsehoods about Mesmer Lich interactions are always repeated.

One of the balances to this is that they have identical CD. Mesmer loses access to Mass Invisibility so they can have a skill that only works occasionally. And the comparison of class vs class is as fallacious as skill vs skill. Remember the classes are balanced against the whole of each other. Lich is not the only transform in the game. There is also Plague, Rampage, Tornado, Whirlpool, Polymorph Tuna, all Norn Racial Elite, Avatar of Melandru. It also counters most elites. And the only non racial elite with a higher cooldown, Moa cannot counter. Looking at you Battle Standard. I think it should remain as it is.

Isn’t there another theory that a padme situation is going on. Anise is Jennah disguised and Jennah is Anise disguised. Both are extremely competent Mesmer, but in the event of an assassination the true heir is preserved. What might be even weirder is that Logan has fallen in love with Anise, and risks everything to protect someone who he thinks is the real queen.

Sylvari awaken “knowing” their name. It generally is a quality they have or will have. And it is thus implied the pale tree gives them that name. Also remember that sylvari do not take surnames because they consider themselves to be of the same family. Even sylvari of the same pod do not take surnames to show they bear closer relation. Finally the only sylvari with surname or titles have been soundless, nightmare court, or outcasts. That being said, I would go with ardwyn, it means on a hill and it will give you greater storytelling freedom.

Athrenn.9468:

I’m personally not a fan of Plato’s metaphysics at all so I’m immediately biased against using “forms” and “essences” to explain magic. My opinion is that magic is the manifestation of a more fundamental force, in the same way that light is a manifestation of the electromagnetic force, which in turn is ‘made up’ of photons, the quanta (fundamental unit) of light.

Similarly, my hope is that magic has a fundamental quantum unit and can be explained by particle physics. I believe that a fifth fundamental force would be required. I’m calling this the psychothaumatic force for now since we have many hints in-game eluding to a deeper connection between mind and magic. My theory is that they are two aspects of the same force, just like electricity and magnetism.

I’m not sure yet how the bloodstone fits into all of this, or what its function even was in the first place so I’m holding off on trying to fit it into my theory just yet.

I’m also uncertain about how this force would interact with protomatter to (re)structure reality. This theory is still a work in progress so it’s not completely fleshed out yet.

You would make a good asura. If you want to flesh it out you should start with the fields and the finishers. Such as what is intrinsic to fire, that when you magically create flames and then force part of that energy into the air, it binds to people and strengthens them.

Why do we blind from dark AND smoke fields? And explanation of fields and finishers.
Darkness: drains sanity, and we cant see without the illumination of tools
Smoke: blinds, we cant see even with the illumination of tools.

The finishers cause a magically imbued field to attach some of that magic to the projectiles, surround the person, or surround the people in the environment.

When you put darkness in a persons eyes, they are not blinded, its called wearing sunglasses.
When you surround yourself with darkness, everyone can still see, its called standing in the shade.
However when you surround everyone with darkness that is called night. And everyone is blind until something removes the darkness.

When people get smoke in their eyes they cannot see.
When you surround yourself with smoke, people cannot see you.
When you surround an area with smoke, people cannot see each other.

This is just my theory, fill free to poke holes if you would like.
Magic and Ether create form. Magic is the embodiment of thought, and ether is the embodiment of essence.

Preservation is the magical enhancement or hampering of form. It induces the magic inside of a form to change the form. Its called preservation because magic is not lost in the process. The natural state of the form is preserved after the magic fades.

Aggression is moving magic in or out of a form to create a change. As well as using magic to move form out of form, such as drawing the light out of a campfire. Its aggressive because the change requires messing with the inherent physical and magical structure of a form. And after the magic fades the natural state of the form has been aggressively altered.

Destruction is using magic to create form. You call in ether from the mists then bind it to magic. Only elemental forces can be created. This product is destructive because the available amount of ether and magic has now decreased because it is bound in form.

Denial does not deal with form. It deals with ether and with magic. You gather ether and run magic over its surface. By this process you induce the ether into behaving in certain ways. The process is called denial because you are continually trying to prevent the ether and magic from coalescing into form. Very rarely coalescing is allowed, but only for things such as light and darkness, the very earliest of creations.

Here are some examples using the assumed professions and their schools.

A Guardian raises his hands and uses magic to shelter himself from outside blows, solidifying the light around him. As he is doing that he spreads magic around himself forcing his body to speed up its healing. When he is done the light fades.

A Necromancer draws on the dark energy in the world and in the conditions she has on herself. She pulls that energy into herself and uses it to pull in ambient vitality. She is healed. However the magical conditions are gone, they have had part of their existence removed and can no longer exist.

An Elementalist calls out to ether from the mist, drawing it in with magic. It turns into a healing mist as it makes contact with their magic. The Elementalist breaths in the mist, gaining some of the healing and condition cleansing properties of water.

A Mesmer calls out to the ether from the mist, drawing it in with magic. It is not allowed to make contact. The Mesmer imbues the magic with the concept of vitality. As the Mesmer runs the magic by three of their previously living ether constructs, the magic in them enhances the magic in the soon to be made construct. The Mesmer then places the ether inside themselves and releases the magic. As the magic enters the Mesmer it assumes this is a yet to be made construct, it adds health to the Mesmer just as a newly formed illusion is given health before it comes into the world. Eventually the ether dissipates, as there is no magic that it can bind to. As it goes the reality it created converges and the Mesmer is healed as if the ether body had been the real Mesmer. The magic goes back to the environment and the ether fades back into proto-reality.

Coulter.2315:

Carighan.6758:

Coulter.2315:

Its not a balance issue though, its a lack of MH Ranged option.

Scepter, and indirect Greatsword and Staff though these ofc lock you into a pseudo-offhand.

Yes, I know, is a condi weapon. And condition has no melee weapon, yes. And in theory I’d easily want all weapns but for now I’d be mighty happy with actually having a (functional) melee weapon for power in the first place, not the sword we have right now. And have the Scepter be less terrible.

Its not the fact its just a condi weapon, its because its very poorly designed – incredibly slow animations that make it so clunky and worthless for landing pressure on PvP targets. I would be happy with a revamp to scepter but my point remains that atm we have a SINGLE viable mainhand to pair with an offhand – this must change.

You do know that scepter advances it chain regardless of hitting or not. It block does TONS of damage on a condi build. And its 3 skills is a channel (good for stealthed targets) with a long duration confusion.

ASP.8093:

TyPin.9860:

The more I think about it, the more I like a reveal effect after stealth expires. It effects chain stealthing only and might be a good thing to when fighting stealth heavy classes/builds (looking at you PU Mesmers and D/P Thieves^^).

I feel like it’s gunning for builds that use stealth for damage/sustain but mostly hurting builds that use stealth for escape/utility.

Sure, sometimes thieves chain stealth and it’s really annoying, but oftentimes they’re already sucking up Revealed because that’s how they do big Backstab damage or stack tons of conditions on you. They can use intense mobility, Blind spam, and dodging to cover that Revealed time pretty easily.

PU builds don’t need to Reveal themselves as often (since they don’t have a powerful “sneak attack” from stealth), but a typical flow is to go into stealth for boons, pop out to load up an enemy with conditions or phantasms while Prot/Aegis/&c. help you survive a bit, then pop back in for more boons. Chaining stealth on a PU build is often wasteful.

Note also how both these builds are gonna have super-long-duration stealth without needing to chain, in the form of Shadow Refuge or (post-HoT) double-duration Mass Invis.

In contrast, there are a lot of times when you’re playing something like Sword/Torch shatter where you’ll want to chain stealth to get the heck out of a bad situation. Stealth is undoubtedly very powerful, but I don’t think it’s particularly unfair that if you kill someone without blowing a lot of high-cooldown skills, you can then use those skills to get away when their buddies show up.

In my view, Stealth applying Revealed doesn’t do much to stealth-spammers. Playing around Revealed is already part of their flow. If you want to discourage or tone down those builds, you need to limit how spammable stealth is, or their ability to turn stealth into sustain (like mesmer PU regen or thief Shadow Arts healing).

Couldn’t agree more. Also I have failed to find a person that could adequately proof stealth spam was bad for the game. You can predict where they are coming from. We have reveal traps in wvw, and in pvp being in stealth prevents point capping.

TyPin.9860:

Jana.6831:

TyPin.9860:

@yolo swaggins:
I respect you taking the time for a long and reasonable post. I have already acknowledged thought that in order to deal with stealth spam, Thieves need other buffs.

What you failed to explain though is, how does 2-3s of reveal after each stealth (Shadow Refuge excluded) limit your abilities. This bug only effected chain steath. Also, if this bug is a “preview” of a future balance change, then you have to see it in the context of the skill system, which will be in place then.

It was clear from my post that I do not think this ‘revealed effect’ alone would solve anything, but it is a step in the right direction when paired with reasonable buffs in other areas.

He did explain it – sometimes one needs to chain stealth to get rid of conditions, either because more are coming in or because the most dangerous ones haven’t been cleared off. With revealed that is impossible and the conditions can’t be cleared.
If you want this bug implemented with the trait system as it is you demand thieves to be free lootbags.

So very frequent low cool down condition cleansing in combination with stealth is not enough? Your argument actually is that you want unlimited condition cleansing in combination with stealth. I am at a loss here.

But it actually doesn’t matter. I clearly stated that this “bug” alone would not fix things and thieves need compensation. Why are you guys coming up with your straw mans over and over again. It seems like you simply want to silence any “other” voice instead of actually discuss the issue.

The onus should be on you as to why stealth spam is a problem. Also remember they have the lowest health pool.

Proven.2854:

In the OP’s initial calculation, he accidentally equated 100 seconds = 1 minute for swiftness.

I’m sure this was mentioned in the live stream somewhere, but basically all traits that cast a skill will work exactly the same way they do now; having the trait is like having a second copy of that skill on your bar, and that copy will have its own separate internal cooldown.

There is the high possibility of there being exceptions to this rule, however.

Math fixed. Confused about your second point as it is a given, unless you are saying they have the same ID. And there are already exceptions galore.

Leodon.1564:

baylock.1703:

Not sure if I’m only 1 who sees something amazing in it.
You start with f5 do shatter combo use signet wile in rift mode do shatters again come out of rift do shatter combo use signet again use f5 again do another shatter combo in rift come out of it than you can do 1 more

So total 5 shatter combos and bc new trait gives illusion when you shatter 1 you only need to set up 1 illusion

You just broke the space-time continuum…

Its very strong but not overpowered. Remember you cant stealth while doing all of these combos. And if I were to put 5 stacks of confusion on you, you would end up killing yourself from this combo. You might get messed up with retail damage. As well as hitting a player with an aura. But I am glad you saw this too. It is a very strong combo for a careful player.

Remember with new traits, under optimal conditions, you could perform it in .5 second casting time. You could also perform it at least twice during a battle. With reductions and alacrity it can be cast every 64 seconds.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Wow I wrote that and it looks complicated even to me.. Good thing Alissah added a video.

If there is no icd then it will be rather strong. On a normal rotation I share 6x might/8s Vigor/7sFury/10s Swiftness/6s Regeneration just by using traits/sword+focus/pack runes and that’s wihout using Chaos Storm, Bountiful Interruption, or Chaos Armor.

Now granted, boonsharing will be rather different now that you have to choose between Vigorous Revelation and “RestorativeMantraMendersPurity” (traits merged) in adept tier and Bountiful Disillusionment vs Chaotic Interruption. Along with our newfound ability to stack obscene amounts of protection.

But considering Signet of the Ether and Continuum Shift… Yeah. Without an ICD were looking at Signet of Inspiration popping at least 8 times in barely 12 seconds

24 stacks of might, 56 seconds of vigor, 1 minute 4 second of fury, 1 minute 20 seconds of swiftness, 48 seconds of regeneration. Seems strong but it is only under ideal conditions and only in combat. As well as the fact that after each boon reaches cap you are unable to share until you can give a stack that wont go over cap.
Elementalists can easily provide that amount in half the time with fury, might and swiftness. Plus they can do it again, in or out of combat, in less that 1 minute. Rangers can give perma regeneration. Perhaps the only unique part to it is perma vigor, as well as the possibility for perma protection.

Lets not forget reapers aoe access to boon corruption.

Hopefully. They did say in the video they were still playing around with numbers. But to put it at any cooldown makes the trait terrible. Like the illegitimate son of Kit Refinement.

StickerHappy.8052:

Daniel Handler.4816:

StickerHappy.8052:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Sebrent.3625:

The biggest issue with Illusion of Life is the fact that it puts people in a state that if nothing they are in combat with is killed, they are worse off than if you had used the ability.

You could technically use Illusion of Life during some large event with a boss (and no adds at the time) in order to troll anyone that is downed. It’s “not cool”.

Some people talk about how “great” it is in PvP, but all an opposing team has to do is play defensive or “back off” until the pseudo-rezzed players fall over dead.

You hit a conundrum. How do you balance an instant revival with a skill that can technically be cast from 5000 feet or in stealth. There is a reason the closest thing a thief has to a revival skill is shadows refuge. Also remember this isn’t like a warriors self rez, if your target doesnt kill anyone they just down again with an additional down penalty.

Which ironically the skill balances itself with it being only a pseudo-res. Also based from my semi extensive pvp experience using this skill, it only has 900 range and it’s not instant.. BUT i do not know if I understood your original statement so I apologize in advance if I did.

Remember any skill with a cast time can be precasted, and as long as you are within range when the cast ends it succeeds. When the skill is completed it instantly revives them, versus a rangers search and rescue which revives over time. But yes I could have been clearer.

Portal entre>leave and do whatever, ally downs on portal, cast illusion of life at ground >Portal exeunt>ally takes exit portal.

But this will be very hard to precast, its only 1.4 second cast time (of course not in the case of ideal scenarios) so we are talking about ideal situations here.

Not at all. The fact that you have portal means you literally can open the exit, wait for f to appear, begin casting and immediately press f and it will work every time.

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/gw2-desperate-decoy.jpg
So more tooltip errors?

Also the language of the trait is “whenever,” not “when”.

StickerHappy.8052:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Lets look at Chaos Archangels Boon storm as our example

Start with Sword/Focus. Make sure you have atleast one Mantra of Recovery charge prepped. Run up and Blurred Frenzy.
Cast iWarden, place Temporal Curtain at his feet. (Regeneration/Remove Condition)
Shatter Warden. Run to curtain, cast iLeap/Swap ontop of curtain. (Swiftness/Retaliation/Vigor)
Shatter clone. Swap to Staff, Phase Retreat ontop curtain. Shatter clone (Vigor/Retaliation)
Cast Chaos Storm, Veil (AFTER Storm so you don’t accidentally Reveal), iWarlock, Mantra Charge, Chaos Armor (Everything else)
Signet of Inspiration. /dance /laugh /cheer /dance
(Sword 2 >> Focus 5 >> Focus 4&Shatter >> Sword 3&Shatter >> Staff 2&Shatter >> Stakitten [Staff 3 – Heal – Staff 4 inside of storm ] >> Signet. )

This essentially means the boon storm is shared twice. Great but not game breaking. Wxe will discuss boons later.

But what about other instances. Say I have traited distortion on signet use. Could I not enter f5 and cast all of my phantasms for some mega distortion and condi clear? Well for the most part people have 2 phantasms available to them, perhaps a third in their utilities, to enter f5 spam then exit you get at most 6 casts. 6 cast means 6 seconds of distortion at best, and six conditions removed. Which pales in comparison to using the shattered conditions gm and doing two 4 person distortions. Which provides 8 seconds of distortion and removes 8 conditions aoe, and without you putting all your phantasms on cooldown.

Now what about all the boon spam? Its not fair you say, mesmers can make any boon in the game perma for those around them. Well copying boons copies the stacks and the duration. So for boons that stack in intensity like might or stability, we can only amplify the process. And we would still do it inferior to say an Elementalist or a Guardian. Say we interrupt 5 mobs and share that 25 stacks of might from traits, that is far less reliable than the fire field method of stacking. Also as long as we have 25 stacks of might, we have to wait till everyone has no might to be able to copy it onto them. Now what about boons that stack in duration. Good question. Most boons that stack in duration are limited by a time cap, for example swiftness is capped at 2 minutes. At 100 percent boon duration our focus skill gives us 24 seconds of swiftness. Going with the 6 phantasm model we could boost that to 144 seconds, and then 44 seconds later with the signet of inspiration we could boost it to 2 mins. This would give us total of 2min 44 seconds. However if a Mesmer is not by an object to summon a phantasm on to, this becomes 48 seconds of swiftness. Not to mention an elementalist can do perma swiftness for far far less. As well as perma fury. Perhaps the only game breaking thing a mesmer may accomplish is perma protection sharing, but that remains to be seen.

Tldr; a mesmer boon sharing every phantasm summon produces no game breaking affect. It is limited by phantasm needing targets, as well as the inherent caps on copying boons.

Hmm it says you Cast signet of Inspiration when you cast a phantasm right? I’m assuming this will share the CD of the original signet of Inspiration which is 45 seconds. Meaning on normal rotations, this trait effect will only occur once in 45 seconds (untraited)

At the current point it has no cooldown.
http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/gw2-needle-trap.jpg
A trait that has a cooldown has the cooldown on the trait itself.

StickerHappy.8052:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Sebrent.3625:

The biggest issue with Illusion of Life is the fact that it puts people in a state that if nothing they are in combat with is killed, they are worse off than if you had used the ability.

You could technically use Illusion of Life during some large event with a boss (and no adds at the time) in order to troll anyone that is downed. It’s “not cool”.

Some people talk about how “great” it is in PvP, but all an opposing team has to do is play defensive or “back off” until the pseudo-rezzed players fall over dead.

You hit a conundrum. How do you balance an instant revival with a skill that can technically be cast from 5000 feet or in stealth. There is a reason the closest thing a thief has to a revival skill is shadows refuge. Also remember this isn’t like a warriors self rez, if your target doesnt kill anyone they just down again with an additional down penalty.

Which ironically the skill balances itself with it being only a pseudo-res. Also based from my semi extensive pvp experience using this skill, it only has 900 range and it’s not instant.. BUT i do not know if I understood your original statement so I apologize in advance if I did.

Remember any skill with a cast time can be precasted, and as long as you are within range when the cast ends it succeeds. When the skill is completed it instantly revives them, versus a rangers search and rescue which revives over time. But yes I could have been clearer.

Portal entre>leave and do whatever, ally downs on portal, cast illusion of life at ground >Portal exeunt>ally takes exit portal.

Lets look at Chaos Archangels Boon storm as our example

Start with Sword/Focus. Make sure you have atleast one Mantra of Recovery charge prepped. Run up and Blurred Frenzy.
Cast iWarden, place Temporal Curtain at his feet. (Regeneration/Remove Condition)
Shatter Warden. Run to curtain, cast iLeap/Swap ontop of curtain. (Swiftness/Retaliation/Vigor)
Shatter clone. Swap to Staff, Phase Retreat ontop curtain. Shatter clone (Vigor/Retaliation)
Cast Chaos Storm, Veil (AFTER Storm so you don’t accidentally Reveal), iWarlock, Mantra Charge, Chaos Armor (Everything else)
Signet of Inspiration. /dance /laugh /cheer /dance
(Sword 2 >> Focus 5 >> Focus 4&Shatter >> Sword 3&Shatter >> Staff 2&Shatter >> Stakitten [Staff 3 – Heal – Staff 4 inside of storm ] >> Signet. )

This essentially means the boon storm is shared twice. Great but not game breaking. Wxe will discuss boons later.

But what about other instances. Say I have traited distortion on signet use. Could I not enter f5 and cast all of my phantasms for some mega distortion and condi clear? Well for the most part people have 2 phantasms available to them, perhaps a third in their utilities, to enter f5 spam then exit you get at most 6 casts. 6 cast means 6 seconds of distortion at best, and six conditions removed. Which pales in comparison to using the shattered conditions gm and doing two 4 person distortions. Which provides 8 seconds of distortion and removes 8 conditions aoe, and without you putting all your phantasms on cooldown.

Now what about all the boon spam? Its not fair you say, mesmers can make any boon in the game perma for those around them. Well copying boons copies the stacks and the duration. So for boons that stack in intensity like might or stability, we can only amplify the process. And we would still do it inferior to say an Elementalist or a Guardian. Say we interrupt 5 mobs and share that 25 stacks of might from traits, that is far less reliable than the fire field method of stacking. Also as long as we have 25 stacks of might, we have to wait till everyone has no might to be able to copy it onto them. Now what about boons that stack in duration. Good question. Most boons that stack in duration are limited by a time cap, for example swiftness is capped at 2 minutes. At 100 percent boon duration our focus skill gives us 24 seconds of swiftness. Going with the 6 phantasm model we could boost that to 2 minutes, and then 1 minute later with the signet of inspiration we could boost it to 2 mins. This would give us total of 3 minutes. With perma aoe swiftness in combat. However if a Mesmer is not by an object to summon a phantasm on to, this becomes 48 seconds of swiftness. Not to mention an elementalist can do perma swiftness for far far less. As well as perma fury. Perhaps the only game breaking thing a mesmer may accomplish is perma protection sharing, but that remains to be seen.

Tldr; a mesmer boon sharing every phantasm summon produces no game breaking affect. It is limited by phantasm needing targets, as well as the inherent caps on copying boons.

edit, math was wrong.

Sebrent.3625:

The biggest issue with Illusion of Life is the fact that it puts people in a state that if nothing they are in combat with is killed, they are worse off than if you had used the ability.

You could technically use Illusion of Life during some large event with a boss (and no adds at the time) in order to troll anyone that is downed. It’s “not cool”.

Some people talk about how “great” it is in PvP, but all an opposing team has to do is play defensive or “back off” until the pseudo-rezzed players fall over dead.

You hit a conundrum. How do you balance an instant revival with a skill that can technically be cast from 5000 feet or in stealth. There is a reason the closest thing a thief has to a revival skill is shadows refuge. Also remember this isn’t like a warriors self rez, if your target doesnt kill anyone they just down again with an additional down penalty.

Sebrent.3625:

Can you provide a link to what you’re looking at Bloodgruve?

I simply scrolled through the various solo DPS options for Guardian and then compared them to the same for a few other classes and noted multiple times where a Guardian build was higher DPS than another class’s build.

Three things hurt Mesmer in PvE DPS:

• Mesmer damage is reliant on phantasms which are getting “whoop’d” to death by some PvE mechanics … making those phantasms do no damage (see: dead)
• Mesmer damage is reliant on phantasms and most phantasms are single-target … aside from the Warden, the best DPS phantasms are single-target.
• Mesmer damage is reliant on phantasms but phantasms don’t benefit from various +% increases. They instead base their damage off more “primary” stats (e.g. Precision instead of % Crit Chance)

NOTE: I’m aware we can trait for Fury on our Phantasms … but that’s rather aggravating when you think about that we have Fury on ourself but still have to trait for it so a core part of our DPS can also benefit from that +20% crit chance.

Actually when we put fury on phantasms they benefit from it twice. So when we have fury and our phantasms have trained fury they get a 40% increase.

Because in the instance you want to use diversion on two or more people you can. And the instance you want to summon a phantasm to attack something while you attack something else you can.

Leodon.1564:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Illusions are impermanent. They will be destroyed by enemies or by the player overwriting them, regardless of whether a shatter takes place. Because they are AI, to not give the player the ability to destroy them is kinda cruel. And since they will be destroyed, giving players an ability to destroy them and gain benefit makes sense. Why is it the class mechanic? Because we will always be summoning illusions regardless of what is on our utility bar.

I have no problems with the idea of destroying our phantasms/illusions to gain a benefit or that shattering is our class mechanic.

The problem I have lies in the fact that too much of our DPS is dependent on our phantasms/shatters (our DPS delivery method). DPS is too important in this game for it be at the mercy of a pet AI, which is inflexible and cannot adapt as a player can.

Randomness seems to be a reoccurring theme with our class, as seen in several of our traits/abilities that provide random buffs/effects. The idea is that occasionally you get a meaningless buff, sometimes you get a semi-useful buff, and other times you get the buff you actually want at any particular moment. This creates a “feast or famine” type of situation for these traits which I am not a fan of because the traits are generally balanced around best case scenarios which means the traits have more of a “satisfied or famine” type feel to them.

While I am ok with this since I can choose not to take these traits/abilities, this idea also spills over to our DPS.

Our DPS fluctuates wildly and is balanced around best case scenarios. As a phantasm mesmer, that means our total DPS is generally balanced around having 3 phantasms up on a single target. But how often does this actually happen in gameplay? Sometimes we can accomplish this but for the majority of the time, for whatever reason, this is not the case. We are constantly in this middle ground, where we occasionally dip really low and occasionally hit our stride. Except at our peak, our DPS is lower than the majority of other classes.

Daniel Handler.4816:

As for having both uniqueness and viability. I don’t like the mentality that we aren’t viable, that is what I seek to debate. And what is viability to you?

I probably should have not said viable because that does imply that Mesmers are unable to do content or is unable to join groups. That is not what I meant. Content in this game is relatively easy and I can only think of a few cases where a Mesmer cannot do something that another class can. (I’m ok with this.)

On my Ranger, my DPS output does not vary widely. The class is designed in a way so you can stay at relative peak DPS performance, no matter the situation. This is what I meant when I said that mesmers are not viable in a variety of encounters. Our DPS fluctuates wildly because its tied to a pet AI, with all of its limitations.

True. However I don’t think this is a failure of design rather a failure of balancing the numbers.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

As for having both uniqueness and viability. I don’t like the mentality that we aren’t viable, that is what I seek to debate. And what is viability to you?

Well, in the dungeon speedrunning groups, mesmer is taken only because of the unique little tricks we can do, not because of anything having to do with actual PvEing capabilities. Mesmer has sub-par dps in almost every single situation, and the non-portal utility we bring can be replaced by a guardian.

I think we are straying past the bounds of casual play into optimization. And this is where viability vs uniqueness comes into play. If I can successfully complete a large amount of dungeons with a non viable build is it then viable for dungeons? Or is it only viable if out of 9 classes, on average people will want my class to fill one of the slots. I agree the dps is a problem, however no matter what we do things will eventually settle into meta.

Leodon.1564:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Except a destroyed phantasm does no damage. And all phantasms are eventually destroyed, I see no issue with allowing a mesmer to benefit from that destruction.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make and you lost me on “…I see no issue with allowing a mesmer to benefit from that destruction.”

Daniel Handler.4816:

And I feel like “viable in a variety of situations” just refers to speed dungeon runs.

No, speed dungeon runs actually did not cross my mind but I guess it could be used as an example in which our DPS delivery method fails to deliver if the example holds true for you. Any time you put the majority of a classes DPS into the hands of a pet AI (which is what our phantasms/shatters boil down to), that class is going to have a much harder time competing against other non-pet classes in DPS due to the inability for the pet AI to adapt.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t debate the math, I debate the mentality.

I don’t want to debate math either. My numbers were just rough estimates to emphasize the points I was trying to make which is that using our core mechanic reduces our total DPS significantly and takes a while for us to get back to max DPS. This is a tough pill to swallow considering the payoff.

As far as my mentality, I think you are trying to imply that I am some arrogant speed dungeon runner. Seeing that I can’t prove otherwise and have no interest in debating it, debate away!,

Daniel Handler.4816:

Also remember that uniqueness and viability are occasionally opposites.

Yes, but can we not have both?

Illusions are impermanent. They will be destroyed by enemies or by the player overwriting them, regardless of whether a shatter takes place. Because they are AI, to not give the player the ability to destroy them is kinda cruel. And since they will be destroyed, giving players an ability to destroy them and gain benefit makes sense. Why is it the class mechanic? Because we will always be summoning illusions regardless of what is on our utility bar.

As for having both uniqueness and viability. I don’t like the mentality that we aren’t viable, that is what I seek to debate. And what is viability to you?

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Leodon.1564:

While the mesmer class is still my favorite class, I don’t think Anet had a clear/well thought out idea of how to implement it from the very beginning so that it could remain viable in a variety of situations. (It was the last class to be finished/designed and I felt that it was rushed out to meet the game’s release date.)

I think Anet has been trying to bandaid the class ever since but either the lead designer does not know what to do or does not have enough clout to make the changes needed to properly “fix” the class. I think its the former as I read somewhere that Anet was disheartened to find out that there were mesmer builds in which players never used the core’s class mechanic (shattering).

Seriously, who comes up with a class mechanic where upon its use, you destroy your primary source of sustained damage (phantasms) and then wonder why people are reluctant to shatter? What did they think was going to happen?

To put this into perspective, would a Guardian want to use their Virtues if every time they used it, their DPS decreased by about 2/3rd initially and then slowly built back up to 100% after 10-20 seconds? The payoff would have to be significant in order to offset the drastic reduction in DPS. Currently for Mesmers, that offset is only achieved by the use of the F1 ability for its burst. (F3 and F4 does not offer enough of a payoff to use them on cooldown or to make builds around.)

I don’t think tying mesmer DPS to one F1 ability was a good decision by Anet. Either all of the F1-F4 abilities should do damage (in different, useful ways so that their is a choice) or they should all be utility skills, like F3 and F4 currently is. Personally, I think it should have been the latter. (F3 and F4 are class defining skills; Decoy and Blink are examples of other class defining skills that could have taken up the F1 and F2 spots.)

Where did you get the numbers for this? Also the class mechanic is the closest thing to what mesmer was in gw1. When hexes became conditions and enchantments became boons, our complex hexes had to change or else we would be stuck a condition class. So “Conjure Phantasm” became the base for our phantasm, with things like the torch phantasm meant to mimic the “backfire” skill. Our ability to remove our hexes for extra aoe damage, “shattered delusions”, became f1. Many other skills are a sideffect of energy not being in the game, as energy denial was mesmer’s chief thing.

His numbers are actually mostly accurate, just a little bit exaggerated. Phantasms comprise roughly 60% of a mesmer’s dps in dungeons, so to say shattering cuts your dps by 2/3 is fairly accurate. Taking 20 seconds to build it back up is a bit much, but I guess that could be a worst case scenario situation.

Except a destroyed phantasm does no damage. And all phantasms are eventually destroyed, I see no issue with allowing a mesmer to benefit from that destruction. And I feel like “viable in a variety of situations” just refers to speed dungeon runs. I don’t debate the math, I debate the mentality. Also remember that uniqueness and viability are occasionally opposites.

Leodon.1564:

While the mesmer class is still my favorite class, I don’t think Anet had a clear/well thought out idea of how to implement it from the very beginning so that it could remain viable in a variety of situations. (It was the last class to be finished/designed and I felt that it was rushed out to meet the game’s release date.)

I think Anet has been trying to bandaid the class ever since but either the lead designer does not know what to do or does not have enough clout to make the changes needed to properly “fix” the class. I think its the former as I read somewhere that Anet was disheartened to find out that there were mesmer builds in which players never used the core’s class mechanic (shattering).

Seriously, who comes up with a class mechanic where upon its use, you destroy your primary source of sustained damage (phantasms) and then wonder why people are reluctant to shatter? What did they think was going to happen?

To put this into perspective, would a Guardian want to use their Virtues if every time they used it, their DPS decreased by about 2/3rd initially and then slowly built back up to 100% after 10-20 seconds? The payoff would have to be significant in order to offset the drastic reduction in DPS. Currently for Mesmers, that offset is only achieved by the use of the F1 ability for its burst. (F3 and F4 does not offer enough of a payoff to use them on cooldown or to make builds around.)

I don’t think tying mesmer DPS to one F1 ability was a good decision by Anet. Either all of the F1-F4 abilities should do damage (in different, useful ways so that their is a choice) or they should all be utility skills, like F3 and F4 currently is. Personally, I think it should have been the latter. (F3 and F4 are class defining skills; Decoy and Blink are examples of other class defining skills that could have taken up the F1 and F2 spots.)

Where did you get the numbers for this? Also the class mechanic is the closest thing to what mesmer was in gw1. When hexes became conditions and enchantments became boons, our complex hexes had to change or else we would be stuck a condition class. So “Conjure Phantasm” became the base for our phantasm, with things like the torch phantasm meant to mimic the “backfire” skill. Our ability to remove our hexes for extra aoe damage, “shattered delusions”, became f1. Many other skills are a sideffect of energy not being in the game, as energy denial was mesmer’s chief thing.

Fay.2357:

Spanny.9256:

2) i do specifically remember being a noob and playing longbow warr, dropping my burst directly onto a thief that was doing his special whirling steal attack that reflects projectiles, and my burst bounced off him and shot back at me.

Unlikely. The warrior burst skill is unblockable, you can’t reflect it.

This is incorrect. And the projectile can be destroyed, and according to legends, reflected. As long as the center of the AoE is placed onto a projectile affecting part, such an event should be observable.

Muchacho.2390:

Carighan.6758:

EremiteAngel.9765:

TRY TO INTERRUPT US NOW

Wait, you mean I have to steal your 10s stability before I interrupt? kitten . I don’t know what to do now. ANet fix pl0x!

It is not 10s stability, it is pulsing 3s stability for 8 seconds. So you would need to steal and interrupt in a rather short time frame, which is doable but really hard since if you are too slow the new stability stack is already on the necro.

Remember our slow application is also on every third critical hit. For instances we don’t have null field on them we just keep a moderate amount of slow on them. That places all their attacks at 1s+ At that point they are no longer covered by the pulses.

Alacrity is currently not a boon. So will they dumb down the skills by one or is there a yet unheard of boon?

Sebrent.3625:

I’ll be fine with a cap on Quickness as soon as they put a cap on the duration of other boons as well … tired of seeing perma <insert slew of Ele/Guard/Warrior boons>

Those classes are one of the reasons I often go back to my Mesmer from my Ranger so I can strip them of these passive-gameplay-enabling perma-boons.

These do have caps. Boons like fury and swiftness are capped at three and two minutes. Regeneration probably has a cap of one minute. Perma just means a boon can be stacked in perpetuity because of their speed of application + their duration.

Ahaaahah: resistance, quickness, and alacrity (which was probably a boon originally).

I absolutely love the trait that extends alacrity. I’ve been theory crafting how to stack it to permanent uptime in combat. And playing with all the variables is very fun. Question for you Jon: if I spend all mantra charges while I am shifted with f5 what happens when I leave?

Fay.2357:

Shield 5 is not a personal buff, it’s an offensive skill that you use for stuns with the added bonus of applying quickness to allies it passes through. You’re not supposed to personally benefit from it without doing some complicated maneuvers.

Sorry Pyro. Another issue is that the first response to OP’s question is wrong. And it set the tone of misinformation for the entire post as people were postulating based on this initial assessment. You will always personally benefit from the skill, the start of the skill counts as the wave passing through you, and you get quickness. There is no complicated maneuver involved.

ODB.6891:

keenlam.4753:

To sum up this thread:

OP plays pve only, he only cares about personal dmg and will stick with the offhand weapons he’s learned to love. He wont use shield because it looks like a support tool in his opinion and will keep trashtalking about it regardless of all the people trying to explain to him how powerful and unique the shield skill (Tides of Time) is.

/thread.

You people are funny. The only trash talk has come from others in this thread. Its pretty funny that expressing my opinion on the value of this off hand versus alternatives has garnered so much behind the keyboard hostility. One would think I had attacked people personally, but oh well. I would like to express appreciation for those few who did manage to provide a civil response…absent of side ways insinuations and implied/overt insults. Ultimately, the poster I quoted is partially correct. I am primarily a PvE player and will likely be staying with off hand weapons that I prefer. What this poster is not correct about is any intention I have of “trash talking” anything. I expressed my opinion on it and clarified my opinion upon being assaulted on this forum for expressing it. The only purpose for this thread was clarification, that could have 100% been accomplished without any of the hostility.

I think part of the hostility is that people are realising if you just rewatched the video this whole discussion wouldn’t have needed to take place. And working out what you thought the skill did from the language in the comments was quite frustrating. Albeit we are also at fault, because rather than responding to the core of your argument, we attempted to correct side details first. For instance me asking you what you meant by alacrity is less important than explaining the functioning of a moving aoe.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

That’s simple. He wanted to be hit by the returning wave twice. ILeap+ToT+Swap+Phase Retreat. This maneuver lowers the cool down by 20 seconds.

Woah there, it’s a bit early to be calling a 20s reduction with that combo. I think it would be really cool if it did give you double reduction, but that’s definitely not a guarantee.

Bad Pyro. Now I have to explain again the importance of watching the stream. He already showed us two ToT in a row. It gave a 20 second cooldown reduction.

Yeah, but those were both on the backswing. They may have coded it so that only catching the return trip will reduce the cooldown.

While I think it would be awesome if hitting it going any direction reduces the cooldown, I couldn’t really fault them for coding it the other way.

Bad Pyro again for assuming. We have mobility based in blinks not running stuff.
I am at point A, if I dash to point B, that time allows for time to move as I am dashing. However if I blink from point A to point B time is the same. You are blinking forward to get hit once by the wave as it returns, then blinking back to again get hit by the returning wave. Both times you are getting hit from the side of wave closest to you, the kind that is suppose to award 10 second cooldown.

I’m not assuming anything, I’m just sorta postulating. If I were making this skill, allowing for someone to doubletap on the cdr would be a conscious decision I would want to make. Both ways would be very straightforward to code, and doubling up on that cdr is a potential massive boost to the skill, not one they’d necessarily want to make.

I’m not saying that it is one way or the other, I’m just saying that there’s absolutely no evidence one way or the other either.

Edit: I actually misunderstood how you were planning on getting hit by the wave twice, but my point still stands. Doubling up on the same wave is something that they very well might code against.

Your assumption was your misunderstanding.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

That’s simple. He wanted to be hit by the returning wave twice. ILeap+ToT+Swap+Phase Retreat. This maneuver lowers the cool down by 20 seconds.

Woah there, it’s a bit early to be calling a 20s reduction with that combo. I think it would be really cool if it did give you double reduction, but that’s definitely not a guarantee.

Bad Pyro. Now I have to explain again the importance of watching the stream. He already showed us two ToT in a row. It gave a 20 second cooldown reduction.

Yeah, but those were both on the backswing. They may have coded it so that only catching the return trip will reduce the cooldown.

While I think it would be awesome if hitting it going any direction reduces the cooldown, I couldn’t really fault them for coding it the other way.

Bad Pyro again for assuming. We have mobility based in blinks not running stuff.
I am at point A, if I dash to point B, that time allows for time to move as I am dashing. However if I blink from point A to point B time is the same. You are blinking forward to get hit once by the wave as it returns, then blinking back to again get hit by the returning wave. Both times you are getting hit from the side of wave closest to you, the kind that is suppose to award 10 second cooldown.

Dr Gonzo.6259:

Wait why would you need to get in front of it to get the buff when the skill bounces back in your direction once it hits the target? Unless I am completely misunderstanding the skill you send it out in front of you, it hits its target then bounces back and always goes towards where you are when it bounces, with the benefits being given if you catch it on the way back…

So in melee you would get the benefits almost instantly because it would hit the target then return to you. I dont know where you’re getting the idea that you have to iLeap in order to get it, that’s just a handy way of changing its direction (ileap always attempts to put clone behind so if you swap before the wave hits it will then continue through to hit you behind the target). From what I understand you can only gain the CDR and buffs once, cause otherwise you could catch 3-4 times with good movement and that would be a little OP.

Another example of watch the stream. ToT is not a targeted skill. It is a moving aoe along a 900 range. He put out two ToT and gains a 20 second recharge bonus.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

That’s simple. He wanted to be hit by the returning wave twice. ILeap+ToT+Swap+Phase Retreat. This maneuver lowers the cool down by 20 seconds.

Woah there, it’s a bit early to be calling a 20s reduction with that combo. I think it would be really cool if it did give you double reduction, but that’s definitely not a guarantee.

Bad Pyro. Now I have to explain again the importance of watching the stream. He already showed us two ToT in a row. It gave a 20 second cooldown reduction.

That’s simple. He wanted to be hit by the returning wave twice. ILeap+ToT+Swap+Phase Retreat. This maneuver lowers the cool down by 20 seconds. If you do it with Rifted ToT you can have a free ToT because the cooldown has been reduced to 0.

Edit: All these questions would have been answered if you just watched the stream again. This is quite frustrating because I did all this work checking information online to help you. And finally I rewatch that part of the stream and the VERY FIRST EXAMPLE of skill five answers all your questions. Yes I learned stuff like I was wrong about an assumption. The simple truth the shield hits EVERYTHING within 900 range twice. That includes you.

Um I’m confused why people think chill would ever be a problem for Chronomancers. We have a base 25% reduction on its duration, and its recharge effects are completely nullified by alacrity.

As for their stability skills, we can just kite through a null field.. 3s pulses every second mean nothing if its being removed every second. Any cover boon can easily be removed with boon rip. For instances we don’t have null field, access to slow means they have longer rotations with less stability uptime.

Our favourite Necro countering skill, Moa, can now be done twice. Fighting a Necro Moa for 20 seconds is a lot easier.

Phase retreat is eternal kiting, but we also have blink, and portal, I don’t see them being able to grab us unless we cant dodge a spectral grasp.

The only thing I dislike is we have the potential to constantly power their siphon traits, 4 targets almost all the time helps them out a lot. But this is only sustain.

Necro versus Mesmer. And Necro vs Chronomancer. Necro dies or stalemate. True we wont always have the best build for every Necro, but most of our base mechanics and skills counter their’s. And I didn’t even mention in this post the huge amount of interrupts we have to counter their long skills.