Guild Wars 2

The logic in these arguments against Shattering isn’t sound. Yes, you trade your built up sustained DPS for burst and in PvE you’d normally rather keep sustained DPS. Most bosses have an AoE of some sort that can wipe your illusions though, so shattering before that occurs can boost your DPS. If you’re fighting multiple enemies and the one you’re targeting is going to die then Shattering allows you to convert some of their potential into damaging other enemies in the area. When Teq goes down I summon a Berserker on him, then a Warden, SoEther, and a second warden. I summon a third (replacing zerker) when it’s ready. But once he stands up i shatter them.

For sPvP burst is king. Following up a Phantasm’s attack with an immediate shatter and resummons is not a loss – it’s a gain. Yes, you have to resummons but having 3 Phantasms safely attacking a single target for an extended period of time is rare and the protection clones provide is short lived once the enemy catches on to your movements.

It’s no different than Signets or Guardian’s Virtues. You give up a sustained effect for an immediate effect. Signet of Ether is even built around this concept of being an offensive heal.

Mantras grant you 600 toughness while you’re charging them, so they’re definitely okay for melee.

Though, unless you’re wielding Sword MH in both sets you should have a ranged option.

This is why many Mesmer builds use a Deceptive Evasion and Decoy. You blow your illusions for an immediate effect. It might be damage (Mind Wrack or COF), Control (Diversion) or self preservation (Distortion). These are all very useful effects for the short term.

Then if you’re in danger you just dodge, decoy, or use one of your blocks to get away. This generates more clones.

The thing is, by leaving your illusions up indefinitely you’re actually wasting potential. After the initial burst from them they tend to be easily avoided or dispatched. Once your enemies figure out which clone is actually you they’ve called a target on you and will ignore the others. Shattering then using decoy breaks that targeting.

Mesmers are intended to be a high skill cap profession, that’s why our mechanic has give and take. Though it’s not as specific to us as you think. Necros can burn through their life force for damage or a quick fear, or more recently, summoning downed allies to them. Doing so pure DS on a cool down and uses some of their life force. They risk not being able to shroud for protection when they go low due to either the CD or lack of life force. A necro managing that resource and using it effectively is just as important as a Mesmer getting the most out of his illusions and shatters.

With IP baseline now there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be hitting shatter. Being able to Diversion a heal instantly or distortion yourself mid stomp is integral to Mesmer play now.

Also – OP is flat out wrong. For sPvP our build variety consisted of Dom/Duelist/Illusions. Your choice was whether you wanted to be melee shatter or double ranged shatter. Interrupt builds had some success, but they weren’t near as viable as they are now.

IP baseline and Mantra CDs recharging immediately after you prep them has given us a lot of options. Never mind potential mimic shenanigans.

Hell, I’m using freaking ‘Mirror’ in my builds for crying out loud :P

Shatter was hit or miss before because it was balanced around Illusionary Persona. IP Mimics the effects of your illusion shatters on yourself. For f2-f4 this just grants you an extra illusion and the ability to trigger them whenever you want (I use F3 and F4 in this manner all the time), however it’s Mind Wrack where it truly shows.

Mind Wrack’s damage doesn’t scale linearly. It deals less damage per illusion the more you have but more damage overall. ie a single illusion might deal 500, but two would deal 350 each (these are just examples but the proportions are approximate). A single illusion Mind Wrack is about 50% of the skill’s damage potential.

IP mimics what your illusions do. So with a single illusion shatter you and your illusion would each deal 500 (2×500). With a two Illusion shatter you’d each do 350 (3×350).

What this means is that a single illusion shatter with IP (2x ~48% dmg) does nearly the damage that a 3 illusion Shatter does without it (3x 33.3%).

We’re all essentially ‘shatter’ Mesmers now. It’s our mechanic. Every build is using it more because it’s more viable and reliable with baseline IP. It’s good that we’re actually using our mechanic instead of ignoring it unless we put a ton of points into Illusions (as it was previously). It would be like a Necromancer who rarely used Shroud. There are builds that are much better at Shroud but they all still make use of it. Mesmers didn’t. That’s how bad off we were and why this is so huge for us.

It might be intentional. Keep in mind they changed Mantras to begin recharging as soon as you finish charging them, so you may only be able to trigger on-heal effects once per charge-up.

Test it with On-Heal runes in sPvP and see if those only trigger on the first heal.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-bugs-6-23

Sorry for what you’re seeing now OP. This forum was a really good community. Mesmer went a long time without seeing any real meaningful changes, instead we frequently not nerfs or saw bugs appear that took months to get fixed (iBerserker not landing all of its hits for example). It’s made many people quite a bit jaded.

What the Mesmer needed is what we just got – some major overhauls. Things like baseline IP and Mantras that recharge immediately (rather than after the last charge is used) are things that should have been part of the original Mesmer design.

The fact is we DID end up with some very potent options out of this patch and anyone who didn’t expect some slight nerfs is utterly foolish. Most people are upset because it seems Mesmer is a priority to get nerfed while other classes also received potent options that haven’t been touched yet.

Rest assured there are still some helpful people out there. Though people who were previously helpful have become quite toxic (you know who you are), a lot of it is like a dog whose been beaten flinching when you raise your hand.

Give it time for the nerfs (and ‘flinching’) to settle and Mesmers will realize how much better off and viable we are.

Was your post title intended to be a pun? :P

JonPeters.5630:

Things we know…

Jon

But let me ask you Jon. Do you know? Do you know the…Muffin Man?

Vieux P.1238:

Thief troll..cuz they cant hunt us like they use to no more.

Ranger actually I think. His last handful of posts have been referring to his Mesmer and how OP he is now and before that it’s been primarily Ranger.

Not a bug, it states when you or a clone uses spacial surge. You’re using spacial surge, you get stacks. Though I’d agree it shouldn’t trigger when not in combat.

Works fine for me. I set it to limit area of effects to max range and my greatsword range matched exactly the maximum cast range of blink.

Ooh I see. The CD on recharging the Mantras cools down in the background (ie 10s between MoRecovery). I had the false hope that they passively regained charges.

Passive recharging is something Mantras have needed for awhile. Can they still be manually charged?

Krispera.5087:

Dastion.3106:

Krispera.5087:

Was toying with Scepter and traited the Sword. Scepter attacks give the sword trait, so with a Confusing Image, you can get 8 stack of ferocity from the trait. Intended or not ?

Staff + Chaos Storm + Traited interrupt : Amazing
GS : Those might stacks…

Huge buff damage overall.

What was your offhand weapon?

Yes, I thought it was only applying with sword attacks ?

I mean: was your OH a sword? It might just work on any weapon attack while a sword is equipped. It gives the OH sword a lot more value that way.

Krispera.5087:

Was toying with Scepter and traited the Sword. Scepter attacks give the sword trait, so with a Confusing Image, you can get 8 stack of ferocity from the trait. Intended or not ?

Staff + Chaos Storm + Traited interrupt : Amazing
GS : Those might stacks…

Huge buff damage overall.

What was your offhand weapon?

Fay.2357:

While you’re busy mashing all of your buttons (which, by the way, will leave you with zero condition removal, zero mobility, and zero stunbreaks), do you really think your opponent is just sitting there watching you?

No, of course they aren’t. They’ll dodge away, or even just walk away and counter your entire thing.

The “was/is” potent was referring to with or without the MTD nerf. Poor wording on my part there.

My reply was not specifically referencing sPvP. However that combo can easily be pulled off in an extremely small timeframe (it’s not difficult to count dodges) with little telegraphing and it’s AoE. The multitude of Dazes and stunning also make simply “walking away” not as easy since the combo literally takes only as long as it takes to cast mimic once and SoIllusions twice. If you think that won’t accomplish something potent while on a point then you are being willfully ignorant. An opponent, or opponents, leaving a point in sPvP is a good thing.

As to leaving you with no condition removal, mobility, or stun breaks. I left a lot open. You literally only use your shatters and 2 utilities. You’re left with:

Two weapon sets: Torch + Torch trait lets you remove conditions and potentially escape. Scepter gives you a block, MH sword would give you the ability to close the gap, immobilize, and blurred frenzy for defense. Staff uses are obvious.

Potentially 3 left-over Signets (SoEther, SoMidnight, SoHumility). All of which have innate effects that help your survival, trait effects that give you distortion and cleanse conditions, and SoMidnight is even a stunbreak.

So what exactly am I missing again?

Firstly – I think a 50% nerf to a trait that was already deemed ineffective at that potency and marginally acceptable at the improved potency is a bit much. There ARE reasons that the trait might now need to be nerfed but I think there are other ways to do it (lesser duration, shatter is intended to be bursty).

However, I am a bit disappointed in some of the wailing and gnashing of teeth, especially from some of the more frequent names in the community. We are receiving some amazing changes guys, and we have people now threatening to shelve their Mesmers over off-handed hearsay? Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be surprised at all if it occurs but seriously guys, this patch is still the best thing for the Mesmer in ages.

Two of the things Robert Gee mentioned as things they were watching carefully were Illusionary Persona baseline and Confusing Combatants. Both of the complaints here are related to that (the latter apparently being replaced sadly. I’m iffy on that one still). Illusionary Persona as a baseline ability is HUGE for us and they are understandably wary.

Shatter conditions was/is potentially very potent. And MTD itself was never combo-able with Illusionary Persona previously because they were both GM traits. To illustrate just what IP being baseline does for us:

Traits (Dom, Duelist, Illusions)
-Confounding Suggestions
-Blurred Inscriptions: Signet CD reduction, condition cleanse, and distortion.
-Blinding Dissipation: Shatters blind in an AoE
-MTD: Shatters inflict 2 (1) Torment
-Ineptitude: Blinds inflict 1 confusion
-Illusionary Retribution: Shatters inflict 1 confusion.

Utility
-Signet of Illusions
-Mimic
-Signet of Midnight

Combo the above and you can shatter twelve times without summoning a single illusion. This gives you the following in the area around you:

12 x Blind: good luck hitting you during this.
30 x Confusion (1 per shatter = 12, 1 per blind = 12, 2 per COF = 6)
24 x Torment
4x 1.25s Daze (single target, at least 1 of these will be a stun.)
20x Vuln from Dazes (Dazzling minor trait. Potentially more if you interrupt even once. Note that this now affects condition damage and domination makes Vuln 50% more effective to you, so 30% bonus dmg).
4s Distortion
Mind Wrack: if the numbers haven’t changed then the total damage is approximately that of two 3 illusion shatters (w/o IP) pre-patch.

All of this with +20% condition duration (a much harder to obtain stat), another potential AoE blind (and thus more confusion) and without using a single weapon skill, elite, or summoning an illusion. There is so little activation time in is combo that it could be mindlessly macro’d and even if MTD is nerfed probably will be. Any most enemies are going to have a difficult time stopping you during it between the ridiculous number of blinds and the fact that you’ll likely have distortion at the beginning and end of each cycle (end each shatter with distortion, then gain it again when you activate SoIllusions). Do so much as actually use your weapon skills to start the first round of shatters off with 3 illusions and it becomes 39 confusion and 30 torment.

TLDR: yea it kinda sucks but we still did kitten good guys. Relax and wait for the patch.

Curunen.8729:

Dastion.3106:

I think it’ll be fine. The guy playing it wasn’t even using a Scepter at the time.

I’d rather not have scepter be mandatory for condition shatter play, so if they do nerf MtD I might invest more in confusion seeing as we have many more sources of that now.

True, but remember that it’s still a potential option that synergies quite well with the build being used. You inflict even more torment with your auto attack, summon clones that inflict torment and your #2 skill will either inflict Torment or Blind+Confusion. Meanwhile the six strike #3 gives you opportunities for at least 6 more stacks of confusion (potentially more on crits).

The guy had 3k torments up on the unmoving golem without even needing to utilize the Scepter.

Ineptitude is looking to be our true powerhouse trait with all of it’s synergy with blind on shatter, scepter 2, and Signet of Midnight.

I think it’ll be fine. The guy playing it wasn’t even using a Scepter at the time.

BobbyStein.2315:

Randulf.7614:

Bobby is clearly a charr player.

You took our Ascalon…you’ll never take our Divinity!!

Guilty as charged. I main a charr ele.

Don’t you mean “guilty as charrged”. ?

I’ll see myself out…

Kelthien.8593:

Korusef.3714:

There is variant with Signet of Illusions that should work though:
F5(start)
Moa
F5(end), Mimic, Signet, F5(start)
Moa
F5(end), Mimic(Signet), F5(start)
Moa
F5(end)
Moa

There’s an extra patch note in the list: Signet of Illusions: Reduced recharge to 60 seconds. This skill now specifies which skills it recharges

I’m thinking this is in preparation to communicate that Continuum Shift won’t be recharged by Signet of Illusions.

Good point and definitely a warranted change.

Sylvari don’t usually have surnames, but they do like to affect titles. They’re basically GW2’s iteration of Elves/Fae Court.

So any name you make could have a title type name like “Illustrious George” or “George the Illustrious”, etc.

Also – I wonder what it was that Robert could have spoiled by swapping Mesmer utilities on-screen?

It can’t have been related to racials since those aren’t available in sPvP, unless they are going to be made available I suppose. I can’t think of what could have been done with Mesmer utilities that we don’t already know.

I didn’t watch every class section yet, was there anything similar in other sections?

Yamsandjams.3267:

Also gives you 1 more source of distortion-reflect for signet builds! Don’t want that moa pecking you to death, no no.

Yea, you can get a ridiculous amount of distortion triggers now.

For example:
Signet of Ether
Signet of Illusions
Signet of Domination
Mimic
Signet of Humility
Distortion Shatter

That’s 8 triggers of distortion (4 signets, one mimic’d Signet of Illusions, and three Distortion shatters due to refreshing it from Signet of Illusions).

Yea, expecting to see this. It won’t be near as easy as just dropping a Feedback dome on the enemy was before, but it’ll still be fun. Especially for a Scepter/Torch & Staff build with some decent access to blind.

It would be virtually a must-have if it did. As of now, you’re basically allowing yourself to slot two of the same utility (one of which has a set 90s CD) in exchange for losing diversity.

A Chronomancer with Mimic has some very interesting potential.

I enjoy Robert. He seems very passionate about the professions he designs – if a bit nervous.

Great job Robert and Josh – appreciate it and I for one really look forward to trying out the new Mesmer changes.

We haven’t gotten a chance to play it yet so we can’t say for sure

As I recall, the truly potent combo in Pyro’s build was that since Defender takes damage for you it not only made you tanky but double or even triple procced Retal. Once when they hit you, again when your defender takes a portion of the damage, and again if the attack included the Defender. A Warrior who tried you hundred blades you both more or less insta-killed himself

But then they changed the Phantasm Retal trait to not constantly refresh

I think there is plenty of room for tanky Mesmer builds in the changes. In the end, builds such as this suffered from the issue that an enemy could simply ignore you. I think builds with mental defense and ineptitude are much more in the spirit of the Mesmer.

I tend to agree. The 5% per second during Chaos Armor that Staff gets seems way more feasible. With it, the torch by itself can only grant 15% reduction with the potential for more if you go for an invisibility build.

I think the only real annoying part is that our primary on demand Swiftness skill, temporal curtain, doesn’t play well with other sources of swiftness.

Levetty.1279:

Would have had more synergy if they kept the old Signet of Midnight.

I guess technically 5.5s of Swiftness instead of 5s is “more synergy”.

I think the OP is asking if the reflect buff from Master of Manipulation will reveal you.

For example, a ranger rapid fires you as Mass Invis completes, the remainder of his shots get reflected back at him dealing damage. The OP wants to know if this damage “you” dealt would reveal you.

With Harmonious Mantras + Mender’s Purity + Mantra of Recovery you could easily stack the harmonious mantras buff. If I’m not mistaken then that’s 2 stacks per heal.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Dastion.3106:

Essentially slotted the same utility twice? Yes – that’s awesome. I can see some a support Mesmer getting some awesome play with this and Illusion of Life.

I wonder if it works on traits that trigger utility skills? Such as Mental Defense(iDefender) and Illusionary Inspiration(SoInspiration).

I used to use illusion of life like warrior banner before I actually read the tooltip properly, it’s a good troll in several situations. Love to see that kind of troll happening twice though haha.

It can suck in PvE because when it ends it counts as being downed again. So if someone has been downed too much they’ll just die when it ends.

However, in sPvP it can be useful, the CD just sucks. Mimic makes it a bit more feasible.

Between F5 and Signet of Illusions, and potential combining of both with Mimic, yet another way to refresh our Shatters was a bit redundant.

In the AMA they made specific note to look into it, so if it’s gone it’s because Robert deemed it so.

Essentially slotted the same utility twice? Yes – that’s awesome. I can see some a support Mesmer getting some awesome play with this and Illusion of Life.

I wonder if it works on traits that trigger utility skills? Such as Mental Defense(iDefender) and Illusionary Inspiration(SoInspiration).

I like it. It diversifies our conditions a bit making them less prone to cleansing and granting an offensive boon.

The way I see it, I summon Phantasms to do things for me that are unMesmer-like. So iMage throwing fireballs makes sense. Though I wish they WOULD upgrade the particle effect to a purple fireball.

sevianvanzephon.1578:

Dastion.3106:

sevianvanzephon.1578:

So the illusions trait line is now about confusion upkeep…where’d all the shatter play move to? Glad there’s another option for Control instead of PU now though. That Ineptitude trait is going to hurt a lot more on dual swords…we might see a lot more swordplay now.

Shatter play is all over the trees. Though Illusions still has a shatter option in each tier. They literally squished 4 shatter traits into a Grandmaster and made an old Grandmaster base line :P

IMO illusions is currently the go to trait line for shattering…but now that it’s about conditions and control (and IP is baseline) there seems to be less rewards for shattering as opposed to playing an interupt or PU build. Shatter seems less like a playstyle and more like a fanciful mechanic…or maybe this is a hint towards future development of shatter in other forms??

Well, Shatter is our class mechanic so it should be prevalent in all builds rather than a build in and of its self (or rather THE build as it has been for awhile).

Shatter has long been a defined play style for Mesmers, but think of it in terms of other profession mechanics like Steal, Virtues, or Adrenaline/BurstSkills. Those have long been mechanics that can be buffed via traits significantly (Shatter still can be) but they don’t define the build.

ANet seems to be pushing Shatter towards being worthwhile despite the build. Making IP baseline alone did this. That skill does so much for Shatter. A single illusion Mind Wrack + IP deals nearly the same damage (within a few %) as a 3 illusion shatter does without because of how Mind Wrack scales and how IP works, it created that mind set that Power Shatter was worthless without it. Now Shatter even enhances Phantasm builds.

Dondagora.9645:

yhvh.8703:

Scepter speed trait + iDefender on evade + Deceptive Evasion

Not thinking very much, but this combo means that the clone factory builds are even crazier?

I was too hyped with engi changes, but seeing the Mesmer, wow, so many good things.

I’m not a theorycrafter, but what is the general consensus on a supportive mesmer according to these changes?

Note that iDefender trait is basically on a 16-20 second ICD due to the traits which use skills inheriting the CD of that skill as well, since it’s basically casting a shadow version of it.

Yup. Combined with Signet of Ether and Ilusionist’s Celerity and Persistence of Memory you’ll be popping out iDefenders at a pretty good rate. I’m very curious about an Inspiration/Illusions/Chronomancer build.

sevianvanzephon.1578:

So the illusions trait line is now about confusion upkeep…where’d all the shatter play move to? Glad there’s another option for Control instead of PU now though. That Ineptitude trait is going to hurt a lot more on dual swords…we might see a lot more swordplay now.

Shatter play is all over the trees. Though Illusions still has a shatter option in each tier. They literally squished 4 shatter traits into a Grandmaster and made an old Grandmaster base line :P

That Greatsword trait… /drool

Also, I like the new Signet of Humility. Hopefully it makes up for Moa not being as unique now, I know that bothered some people.

Adngel.9786:

About future heroes, there could be Hayda (no please no), but in more serioues tone, Livia? we still don’t know what kind of sacrifice did she made when she took the Sceptre of Orr, but knowing her, I think it’s possible she was able to left a noticeable mark in the myst.

Read the 3rd (last) GW2 book. There is – information – there that you might find of interest.

Black Box.9312:

Have you SEEN what Mesmer is getting with the specialization rework? It’s getting arguably the biggest buff of the bunch as far as core specializations go.

Per ANet Mesmers got the second most changes. Most of the changes are to Engineer, which we still don’t have the full details of.

I’d really rather see Spirits be immobile but have rather large ranges. Then, once the Spirit is active have the second trigger able effect be “Summon your Spirit to you and do an effect”.

1) Mesmer isn’t the only caster that uses a melee weapon as a ranged focus. You have Axe on Necro and Daggers on Ele. Greatsword is just the most flamboyant of these. Either way, this isn’t really a Mesmer ‘feature’, it’s just a cool thematic and I’m glad to see other non conventional uses.

2) The whole purpose of Elixir X is to borrow from other class effects. And they’re just getting an effect that is reminiscent of Moa. As I recall it’s an AOE very short duration version.

3) It’s just a combo aura effect. Ele’s get similar direct access to auras on their weapons and fields to generate them but other classes get those same fields. Revenants are the first profession other than Mesmers who it would make sense to have an ethereal aura.

4) Engineers have pretty much always been rather competitive in this with Static Shot.

This specific change has zero effect on us. It doesn’t really change the effectiveness of Stealing, it just lets them see the CD of steal while they have an item pocketed and let’s them reuse Steal without having to consume the item first.

Actually it’s clear from the rest of the NPC’s reactions in the HoT beta that none of them have any idea what the hell Rytlock is. He shows up and uses Revenant Magic and gets questioned about it and told he’ll explain later.