Guild Wars 2

Oh gods I’m loving being kittened so much. My NAME is kittened arbitrarily. . . best Kitten EVER! ! ! Ahem. . . back on topic, Wise made a good point, this might have been the idea in the first place, or more accurately, that leaving Mesmer broken for tPvP for a few days might be a really good idea. First this will have us Mesmers playing other professions and getting even better at beating them when they do fix Mesmer, but second and more importantly, to find out how much of an impact Mesmer makes in a team composition. If you win just as well without a Mesmer then really it’s the style of the Mesmer that you like better, not that they are overpowered or anything at all.

That being said, it probably is a simple enough fix if they have the people to devote to it away from the PvE events. This is a very exciting time to be a Mesmer! We could be on the verge of a sweeping change to Mesmers everywhere! (Don’t believe the hype, I’m not getting my hopes up. . . I am getting my Ele up though!)

Build diversity is not the focus of this patch. . . that will come next year sometime. For calling this patch a large balance patch it was mostly a minor balance patch (which I actually applaud) with a focus on making sure the most played build is where they want it. Then they can see about fixing Phantasm builds. The major idea here is simple, get to a level that works the things that are close first, then fix the things that you know will take longer to fix later.

Easy fixes > Hard to solve issues.

The thing about other builds is that they rely more on AI working appropriately, which seems to be every video games weakness. And they don’t seem to want Bunker Mesmers relying on passive trait bonuses, those are just perks to having the trait points in those lines. I’m pretty sure they are trying to get Mesmer to rely on active defenses to be good, and stealth, hence the buff to 30 point trait. Notice they also put a protection in the 30 pt trait of Chaos too, effectively coupling with Illusionary Membrane to get the same effect with more work. Stealth is looking like it’s our bunkering mechanism. . . except we can’t hold a point because stealth allows the enemy to cap. Ah well. . . I’ll look into it more later when I’m not so annoyed with Illusionary Membrane being nerfed.

Back on topic, Shattered Strength now feels like a 25 point trait, and is probably about right for it’s devotion to that line while also making shatter based condition builds better too.

Are we playing the same game Deathspike? The Phantasms DEFINITELY spawn and have about a quarter of a second of visibility before attacking, giving you just the right amount of time to dodge if you are watching the animation of the Mesmer holding his sword above his head and mouthing the words “THUNDER! THUNDER! THUNDERRRRCATS!!! HOOOOOO!!!!!!” (at least in my head) Oh hey a Berserker is about to appear. . . I should probably be ready to dodge. >.>

At any rate, Elementalist are much more fun to play with all that Protection rolling.

Appears I cannot get a Crit for 0, tried everything I could, so I assume that it’s not possible at this point, any Critical hit of less than 1 damage seems to get boosted to 1 damage. Also, so far only Sword Clones can hit for 0 for me and only on their 3rd auto attack.

Edit: Maybe I need a target with more armor to get a reliable 0 damage from clones. = ) That MUST be it!

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA OMG IT KITTENED MY NAME!

HELLS YES! Oh that’s funny. Back to ummm. . . topic; I can’t test your theory. . . I can’t get my clones to do less than 1 damage right now. Wait, I’ll be back soon, gonna get naked and see if I can get them to do 0.

Edit: WOOT! Got a 0 damage hit from a sword clone! Have yet to see a 0 damage Critical hit though.

Might check your trait setup, with them bottomed out I’ve gotten damage fine. . . perhaps it’s a bad reaction to a specific trait. Also, are you level 80? Perhaps it is a pre 80 glitch. . .

I’ve still not experienced it in sPvP. I have noticed it in tPvP though, and I have a theory. . .

With Mesmers being out of tournament contention at all. . . how does it affect the meta game? If it’s massive, why? If it’s not, can they be buffed without worrying about the effect on the meta?

If you remove something completely from a specific area you get to see the void left behind, and in that void does something else take the place comfortably. Does the higher movespeed gained by Eles allow them to be Treb controllers? What all changes? Most of this would be easy to tell even in a short time span since so many people will have tried something else so they could continue playing rather than not play at all.

Clones doing damage is actually important to Sharper Images, if they do 0 and Crit for 0 they don’t apply Sharper Images since it’s likely the game doesn’t register a critical hit for 0. ; ) Important stuff.

Regardless though, critical hit based Sigils do not work with clones critical hits so it’s really okay anyhow. Anything involving utilizing your illusions for anything more than a shatter is being removed slowly since beta, I’ve been playing it all the way through. Play your shatterer and enjoy it. = )

@Wise: I too like the patch in retrospect, for the same reason, I’ve been playing my Elementalist more and more now, my Necro hit 80, and I’ve even got my eyes on Engineer again. Next we can just remove Phantasms from the Mesmer profession, and buff Shatter a bit more so I can play my Shatterer better, purely as glass, because Mesmer do not need bunker builds at all.

Lordryux.9785:

i have that problem in tpvp but spvp games not at all

Hence why the original poster postulates that it’s probably related to the trait/gear swapping code, since that isn’t applied to sPvP just tPvP. This bug pretty much makes tPvP unplayable for a Mesmer and I personally don’t want to play sPvP because zerging for glory is boring.

Edit: Title should probably read tPvP Mesmer Illusions broken (or something to that effect since it’s not sPvP at all).

Saw a picture with an ANet employee directly in front of one of these in a tPvP match, so I’m pretty sure they are aware of it.

Would be better if they would just /dance while they were naked though.

Tested in the Mist, my staff clones were still doing around 2 to 4 damage. Empty your trait points and test to see if it’s a specific trait that is messing it up.

Oh right, I totally forgot about portal. . . we do still have that don’t we?

Oh it was funny, just got out of a game of tPvP where they were standing there naked all game long. Well normally I’d be surprised about the bug. . . but I’m used to these bugs with Mesmer at this point. Had hoped to start doing more PvP after the patch but I guess it’ll have to wait till they fix it and other issues.

That my friends would return to the game and play it for more than a couple hours only to quit again. Oh and perhaps some adjustments to burst damage so it’s not so high right at the start of engaging an opponent. Maybe some balancing to bunkers, a few different game modes for sPvP, point systems readjusted slightly for current sPvP content.

There are many reasons to use Torch. . .
No one else does, so it’s unique!
It provides you with a light source in dark caves!
Sometimes you can make people think you are a ranger!
It’s warm!
How else are you gonna light your spliff?

Now seriously though, while great thoughts on reasons. . . Torch isn’t really in a good place right now, and until they patch we won’t know if they know it. I would say the skills it has feel clunky and awkward to use while not providing a good amount of damage on either end. Now if they make Mesmers more tanky and you can utilize the retaliation better. . . More passive cleanses and defenses would make that possible or just adjusting burst so it’s less front loaded would roughly do the same thing. The major issues I don’t think stem from the skills themselves but from the current design which makes so many of the other styles of play just less viable.

It’s a pretty small AoE, but definitely large enough to do what it needs to most the time. However it is definitely best on sword clones (as those are the only ones that are melee) if you are looking to get the conditions on replacing the clones with more. Generally coupled with Deceptive Evasion so you can just spam dodges to make various effects. I don’t like Confusing Combatants nearly as much as Cripple or random condition though, and I believe those “random” conditions are actually from a limited set of Bleeding, Vulnerability, and Weakness.

Felblade.8701:

Why would you do any other dungeon when the new one is a cake walk, has better gear, more money and faster? Only reason people will still run CoF or AC is because they are easy and fast, rest require more attention and a generally harder. I have zero interest in fractals after a couple of runs, its just says grind all over it, i had my fun doing it just to experience first time and after that its just repetitive grind, are we all zombies now?

Why do I do dungeons other than Fractals?. . . because I like a challenge, I’m probably the minority, but because learning something new is interesting. I’ve played enough fractals to have figured out a good portion of them, and the idea that they will get harder as I continue doing them is pretty good too, unfortunately they will be the same maps, over and over with new stuff in each (meh). I liked doing AC, I like TA, I like all those dungeons, and doing them with several new people gave me new friends and challenges, showed people that Mesmers are strong in PvE dungeons and many other perks.

Fractals feel overloaded with whining little brats who only grind for gear, once they have a new dungeon to grind I’ll go back to playing in Fractals, till then I couldn’t care less. Also, I don’t care about loot or best in slot gear stats anymore, I’ve kicked the habit. . . it was tough, but I’m happier for it. Game is so much better in Rares and Exotics anyhow, bigger numbers = easier game = less challenge = boring = sleep mode = playing some other game with more challenge. That’s why I PvP, players offer better challenge than non players, sometimes. . . but that’s what matchmaking will fix too, better challenges each and every time I play, now THAT sounds encouraging!

For sPvP and tPvP I’ve been running 20/20/20/0/10 as my basic everything build and swap traits to whatever I need, was running it earlier today with a Soldier’s Amulet, Sword/Sword & Staff.

20 in Dom for Clone Death = Cripple & Boon Stripping on Shatter
20 in Duel for Clone on Dodge & either Sword CDR or Phantasmal Fury (depending on Amulet)
20 in Chaos for Staff CDR & Damage Redux per illusion
0 in Illusions because any Amulet I’m going to use is gonna have vitality on it
10 in Illusions for Any Trait that is appropriate given Amulet

This provided me with enough damage to move a Bunker in tPvP and enough survivability to endure 1v2s or 1v3s for a fair amount of time until allies arrive. Runes vary greatly depending on what you want to do. The build is very versatile, and while definitely not the best at any one thing it’ll do everything you need no matter where you go, it’s by far the most balanced build I’ve played on Mesmer yet. Currently been running Runes of Lyssa with Mass Invis Elite for dealing with Condition based builds, Phantasmal Defender for defending about power builds, Blink/Decoy for dropping targetting, Null Field because it’s just that good.

Tomorrow all this is likely to change though. Oh well, I’m hopeful it’ll be more fun and interesting.

Focus is a great utility device that enables excellent support or bunker builds in addition to providing swiftness to the player. Depending on the role I need to fill in both tPvP and WvW I often will throw on a focus and switch over to a more defensive amulet. The combination provides a very stable build with low burst and much less damage but huge amounts of survival skills. I would say never underestimate that pull from Into the Void. . . it’s excellent for winning the bunker war against a Guardian, especially when my build also strips boons from shatters. Strip boons, force them to use a channeled ability pull them off the point and watch them look for a way to get close without getting hurt while their heal is down (they will generally run at you and switch to X/shield for a knockback, just BF when they get close to ya). Focus is actually quite useful in almost any build, just need that Warden to be ground targeted and we’d be set.

Better would be to have different client side animations available from the Gem Shop, friendly players could choose to see other friendly players new animations or not. That last bit is rather important, being forced to see new animations makes PvP’ing harder and unfair, but also being forced to see friendly players new animations could be confusing as well. I could see being in a Hotjoin and being like. . . wtf is that? friend or foe ability? And not realizing it was Healing Rain and I needed to stand in it. Just an example, and one I wouldn’t expect to see happening often as few people play staff Ele in sPvP hotjoins.

Edit: That being said, client side so I could have my Asura Mesmer having the sword floating above my right arm as I stretch it out (and not between both arms like all other races) as an optional animation. . . well I’d purchase that from the gem shop. In fact, things like that are the only thing I’d purchase from the Gem Shop, color change client side on my particle effects would be awesome too.

Thief is definitely falling off in popularity, Elementalist is on a rise because of slight DD buffs and recognition from Pros as being an annoying to deal with bunker. Mostly because of the latter probably, but that being said, I’ve seen waves of Necros lately that I don’t think are getting represented, especially in the last week.

Trends come and go, I figured out a build that VERY handily has been dealing with those “nerfed” Elementalists lately on my Mesmer. I say this because Bunker DD Eles were quite hard to deal with on a Mesmer some time back, we just didn’t have enough ways to get rid of their never ending boons, now buff stripping is actually easier because their Auras don’t count as boons anymore, means I clear off that protection a lot more often, and that stability, go go Null Field ftw!

Mesmer was my first profession and my favorite by far, the entire style of play was so natural for me that I never encountered a time where I felt completely helpless. The early levels 1 to 30 was dominated by constantly obtaining the best gear available through crafting and karma then dominating everything with opening with GS on my target till it closed then switch to my double swords for slapping things around and shattering to finish.

Mid Game (30 to 60) became a game of just shattering everything all day in rapid succession as I was on a shatter build that I had developed in the Beta Weekends. Late Game (60 to 80) was all about mobility and completing the heart tasks until the nearly all Dynamic Events of Orr which was finding the right random groups of people and following them around till the leveling was done. That’s when I really started doing the dungeons, retrospectively I would suggest trying to do the dungeons earlier as they give a ton of experience. Personally did not try to level quickly but still ended up at level cap in less than 2 weeks. Some professions definitely feel stronger in the early game with just basic attacks and such, but none had the diverse power of the shatters, coupled with quick ways to make clones from so many of the weapons you can position easily to beat just about everything.

So in summary, it is probably you, the play style might not be the one for you.

@Xavi:
And to anyone who read his post, this is a largely noob eating tactic. Any player that is in a PvP environment should know to turn off NPC names and only have player names turned on so that all your bouncing around and making clones doesn’t work at all, only the real you will have a name tag over your head.

As for tricks I use, Illusionary Membrane pairs beautifully with Regen from Phantasms granted by the Trait Phantasmal Healing. . . what a lot of people don’t realize is that you can stand next to a healing turret or in a Healing Rain or the Guardian Symbol that gives Regeneration to get several stacks of this protection rapidly and share the love with Signet of Inspiration. This also pairs well with Runes of Dwayna.

Shattered Strength gives a lot of stacks of might, coupled with a good amount of boon duration increasing you can end up with a lot of power and condition damage, and it can be used for higher burst. I will often dump as many clones out as quickly as I can to shatter and work my way back and forth between Mind Wracks and Distortion Diversion Cry into the final Mind Wrack with sometimes over 15 stacks of might on me.

Impressive that this topic is still being carried forward knowing that we have an entire patch dedicated to professions balancing coming on the 14th. Well. . . there will be other content as well. . . but balancing is definitely in there somewhere. At any rate, some of us are very upset I can see that, but I think we should wait the week at this point, level an alt or learn those thief abilities so you can better counter them or something.

As a community we really should be looking to help the developers and not simply dismiss them as idiotic. They are working on things, and we have a rough timeline on several issues. That being said, if they really hurt the profession more it’s going to get harder and harder to win partial group free tournaments.

iDuelists finisher is still 100% with Duelist’s Discipline. So appears to still be. . . broken.

Edit: Tested it a few min ago again to be sure.

I like these ideas, just a ton of new balance issues if the developers were to use them, animations and such are easy since most of these are abilities from other professions anyhow, just use theirs with a different glow effect on the Mesmer to identify the ability from their ability. (Fiery Greatsword on an Elementalist has a nice particle effect to distinguish it from a Warriors) As someone else mentioned though, there are a few traits that are connected to phantasms that would need to be changed, and because of that this probably requires far more work than it initially seems. Plus there might be some issues with giving Mesmers a bit more mobility in a Whirlwind, or a personal Deflection from a Focus. . . (not connected to the phantasm initially), or a Ground targeted effect like a Torch throw, or a Shield Rush from a Defender. . . (that’s the closest I could think of for a Defenders ability).

I would vote for having Phantasms that actually work and inherit all the rest of the stat bonuses we have, Vitality really probably should affect Phantasms (at least partially), Condition Duration, Sigils and Runes procs should grant us their effects from Phantasm attacks since they are our attacks basically. And all of those are things that should not create balance issues overall.

Okuza.5210:

It feels like they’re following me from class to class and nerfing me as I play.

I really had started to think this was the case myself. . . I actually started playing both a warrior and thief just to see if they would nerf them, but I kept falling asleep at the keyboard while playing them. I mean really they were that easy for me to play, maybe because they mostly feel like every other warrior/thief I’ve ever played in any other game. That includes rogues and such as well. . . If only I could have stuck with it, maybe they would have been nerfed.

That being said I’ve seen more developer activity as of late then I had in quite awhile, so the hope now exists that they are in fact working on issues that have been around for some time now. Pulling resources from other areas of the game for work on these issues would greatly speed up the process, and something they might in fact do, but patience is wearing thin for many players (or is completely gone at this point).

I find myself struggling to maintain high morale and even slipping into the mindset of others from time to time, regardless of the fact that I try not to assume that the developers do not care. Really they have made great strides as of recent to relay their intentions as best they can, these stats just prove that players care quite a bit about this game, and that the developers are nearly drowning in requests to have certain issues fixed.

Laniluna.9017:

The other day I was thinking about rolling a second mesmer for my main alt… 8D
(Other professions aren’t nearly as fun to play!)

THIS, so very much, I really want to see what the leveling feels like now that I know the class so much better and the nerfs hit so hard. Also, I often go super tanky Phantasm build and just run around seeing how many of the enemy team I can get to chase me before they finally take me down. “Catch the Mesmer” is the best game since “Catch the Teemo” you should try playing it.

Oh and back to your original post, I totally thought that’s how the Torch worked when I first tried it. . . couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t end the channel or perform any other actions. Took the torch out of my bags as bits of wood and sold it on the trading post, best investment I ever made. Seriously though, I’m glad you have a build it works in, and am pleased you like it, though I’d much rather see other things fixed first. That said this is a perfect correction to the Prestige.

alanis.6094:

Dunno what the point of comparing a clone to a phantasm. I figured he was just mistaken in his typing.

That’s the issue they were actually trying to make you aware of, if a staff clone beats the iMage there appears to be an issue. Now one would think they would improve the damage of the phantasms to ensure they were better than a staff clone. . . but more likely they’ll nerf staff clones instead. That would be the approach they have shown us thus far, however that being said I would hope they would fix the phantasms to be quite a bit better overall. I enjoy my phantasm build I’ve been running around with lately because it has pretty decent survival, but it really doesn’t do anything for damage, and Thieves popping all their CDs still can nearly instagib it.

This might be the most amazing thing I have ever seen. . . Devs on the Mesmer forums. Guys I want to thank everyone for sticking around and complaining to the developers.

Developers, I’d like to thank you deeply for getting back to us and giving me hope about the future of my chosen profession. Also, please keep asking the right questions in regards to both profession balance and overall balance of the game, this more than anything will give the most reliable continued success. By the way, a small plug here “Gem shop seems like the perfect place for changing the color of particle effects (but not the effects themselves) MONEY!”

The issues stem from the complexity of the abilities. Since they function like compound abilities they are harder to balance. . . unless you ask the right questions. I feel like I’m in iRobot. . . " I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions." – Dr. Alfred Lanning

If you use this approach to why our abilities are hard to balance you get some very interesting answers. For instance:

Why are our Phantasms considered powerful?

I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

huh. . .

Why are do our Phantasms get nerfed?

I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

hmmm. . .

Do other classes abilities feel like our Phantasms?

Absolutely. . . that’s why the utility of their abilities still work when Phantasms utilities are shut down!

Wait. . . I meant. . . I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

This is almost a purely humorous post, the truth of it is this though, we as players as provocative questions that might indeed hit the nail on the head; have we asked enough yet however is the real question. If we ask enough good questions eventually the answer must become apparent. That being said the easiest solution is generally the best one, and while one thing looks like an easy solution it’s often far harder than simply approaching it from a different angle.

So our abilities are compound, they could break apart their nature and make them simpler. This sounds like a ton of coding, a ton of work too since there are so many abilities on a mesmer that are OP. I would ask that the developers ask the right questions.

The melee aspect of the Sword is one of my favorite things as well, however if I were to go with any particle effects added maybe some sort of backstab from Illusionary Riposte. Mostly because it would look awesome to block something then watch a pink sword stab my opponent in the rear! (I play an Asura)

Metabeard.1538:

They’re less akin to skills like hundred blades or rapid fire because for those skills the person who is using them cant be doing anything else while doing them, theyre commited to the skill and it can be stopped with something like a knockdown or some other hard cc. If youre saying they are similar then when a mesmer gets blinded sure it should only stop the first hit of the illusion, but when a mesmer is knocked back, dazed or disabled in any other way other than blind all of his illusions should disappear.

Except that Phantasms (and not all illusions mind you; clones, defender, and disenchanter are illusions too) can be killed, also in that way they aren’t like a DoT.

I didn’t see that post before responding. It should be noted that your post seems to hate mesmers a great deal from the points you are making throughout the entire thing.

I normally avoid these threads because they get a little hot, tonight however I feel compelled to post. Blind functions a little brokenly on a Mesmer, I don’t need to add reasons to why that’s already been posted. The most common retort is well it’s fine because you have access to this or that, and to some degree I can agree with this.

Now then, that being said, I’m inclined to compromise quite a bit to have working abilities again. Most of us would probably agree that Portal for a zerg seems a little too strong, limit to 5 is fine, reduced CD so it’s useful again in PvE, whilst at the same time not allowing one to portal with a package in hand (most simple solution to Treb porting) seems like an excellent trade to me. Just bring more Mesmers for your WvW Zergs! Which of course weakens your overall variety in WvW but puts time between your portals and ebbs the flow of the zerg and limits the number to probably around 10 to 20 at most while putting a lot of stuff on CD for many players at once. Likewise the PvE benefit goes up and not being able to portal with a package removes trivializing that Trebuchet destroying Ele or Thief in tPvP as well as several dungeons that have you run a boulder dodge run to land a package where it needs to go.

To the passive CDR to illusions I personally want to be rid of it. I play my mesmer and hate that 5 points that MUST be used, as much as I hate my 20 points in Dueling that I NEED right now because of blind. I really would like to see a return to a phantasm oriented support build, or a glamour fun stuff build, options would be best, and that trait just makes everything else too good. Just remove both please! Give me a 5 point trait that makes a clone on dodge and drops targetting with an Internal Cooldown that way it’s less likely to break it, and then a 20 point trait in Dueling that creates two clones on crit with an ICD as well.

That done I have a defense option available almost anytime, dodge make clone shatter, in the shattering tree! I have an offensive tool that can be used to shatter in the offensive tree! Mesmer burst is reduced even with appropriate timing of those passives. With changes as such you’d probably need to give the UI some tweaking so being a good player is a bit easier with some way to track passive’s ICDs visually.

A ton of information, not all of it based on just nerf this it’s doing too much damage, or QQ we’ve lost so much, I’d much rather have a more balanced class.

A few great things about PvP in this game.

• Gear is not a grind, log in select your gear, play your game
• Dodge mechanic feels absolutely great
• Don’t have to level up to PvP
• PvP has it’s own little home in the Mists rather than being bound to the major city

Now the bad.

• Superior Burst or get the kitten out
• Survive the superior burst or get the kitten out
• No need for tactics if you have superior burst
• Dodge mechanic makes burst okay, just stun break and dodge! oh wait. . .
• Dodge mechanic does NOT make burst okay
• SO many missing features that make PvP more enjoyable (matchmaking, custom arenas, spectator mode, multiple modes)
• Unintentional trait glitches making many builds just not work

I think that about sums it up, when they are ready to fix these things the game will get quite a bit better. Fixing the trait issues for the classes and making sure the abilities are working as intended will help fix many of the issues, getting the burst to a point where you have at least 1 second to respond will help tons too.

I played many fighting games when I was younger, at local arcades, generally against the AI when I was trying to master certain combos and timings, but rarely found good opponents there. This style of play that we are currently in reminds me greatly of those years. . . I never really enjoyed beating up on the weaklings though.

It should be noted I was a much better video game player back then.

/thread = TL;DR: Use your c-c-c-c-combo breaker!

Oh you used it on the rest of the zerg that just jumped you and the warrior came up last to just stun you and slow motion 100b your face? Too bad, good job surviving the rest of the zerg though.

Chain ability should be Frontal Cone AoE > Single Target, same max range as the weapons respective #3 ability, Daze at 600 range frontal cone AoE (zergs get off me!!!), Blind at 900.

I think the major thing to realize here (and maybe it’s been mentioned before I didn’t take the time to read all of the posts, but I got the gist of most of them), is that Vertical Progress makes content easier. A difference that can be noticed is completely based on how you look at numbers and content, if I were to take the time to gear myself out in totally new gear replacing the exotics I just finished I could probably both find it and get it more than quickly enough, and feel the 1 to 2% difference. I played enough World of Warcraft to know how much a 1 to 2% difference can make over the course of a fight.

Furthermore, you take that 1 to 2% (full gear swapped this is about the total stat difference you’d get over all), apply it to each person in your group, and you might very well be pushing through lower rungs of content up to 20% faster. Now wait you might say, a total of 5 to 10% difference in just numbers should equate to almost double that in progress speed. . . but it does that exactly. You don’t have to take my word for it, just watch videos and read posts about how fast someone beat X dungeon or Boss, watch again after a gear increase.

The major issue here is, that gear caps don’t interest me as a player anymore, the people that say there needs to be one to keep interest might have a low attention span or more time than they know what to do with. An interesting study might be whether people want that gear grind or not, and asking us simply isn’t the way to do it, if they see a significant or lack of interest in their new content because of new stats on gear that may be a sign. More than likely they will see the same thing other games see, a burst of interest from players over all then a general fall off again as the days and weeks go by. From there they either have to make more new content or approach the content they have from a new standpoint.

TL;DR Stat progression leads to an easier game, and easier is boring for me and many others.

Wait. . . someone said there was only 2 Developers working on class balance? How do we know this? Is it linked somewhere and I didn’t realize it, I mean if we know how many it is, then we can probably figure out who they are and be able to more directly influence the development through careful and considerate approach. That being said, I think it’s highly unlikely that there are only 2 people working on class balance, in fact so incredibly unlikely that it’s probably more like 5 to 10 people that work on these skills.

I mean you consider the development process and then the programmers needed, then the art changes that might need to be made, it feels like there are many more people working on these things then we might initially consider. Also these changes aren’t easy to fix, and far easier to break. The changes they implemented definitely were geared mostly towards an ease of use fix rather than a solid one in my opinion. changing a summon into a ranged attack broke a lot more than it fixed and made the playing of the profession much harder.

I really hope they fix these issues and our other bugs with abilities and traits but until they do I’ll just run around WvW and pull people off walls with Focus and set up Catapults on cliffs to blow up walls. Seems like the best thing I can do.

Definitely more concerned with iSwordsman and the already sad iMage (this guy really wants to show off how good he is in small group fights, he really does). I really wanted iMage to be good, and in fact have been trying to figure out a build that will use it in PvP with Retaliation and lots of health and regeneration and protection, just haven’t figured out that build yet. (when I do though, oh man when I do)

The Gem Shop opens the door for a lot of different effects that could be added to the game. In fact, to make those additions just client side would make them an easy addition that doesn’t affect other modes of the game in a negative fashion.

Yeah, they could easily make those butterflies be bats for me, or rats, and my particle effects be orange and green, and everyone else would still see butterflies. Would also help me tons in PvP for allowing me to see where my effects were versus my opponents (who would still be just the normal particle effects and colors).

In fact, we should just remove scepter from Mesmer and replace it with Pistol, for one, Pistol looks cooler, and two. . . I cannot for the life of me think of one ultra slick deceptive character in any fiction ever, that wielded a scepter. Sailor Moon doesn’t count, she wasn’t ultra slick.

Or rather. . . kittenit, she was ultra slick. . . I remember that night well. /sigh. I’ve completely ruined my whole argument.

I main a Mesmer, and while I’m not the best in existence, I am getting pretty good. Truly thieves are the only thing that are difficult to play against if I’m playing well, do Mesmers need nerfs? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure, fixing bugs on other professions in essence buffs those professions. Fix the bugs on all the professions, they balance out a ton, close exploits they balance out a bit more. However, there are much better answers than directly nerfing or buffing a particular profession, overshadowing issues such as burst damage and bunker builds based around boon duration stacking. Solve those first and the rest gets much easier to balance.

So as I see it, no I don’t think Mesmers need nerfs, hit the burst damage aspect of the game, tone down survivability from protection duration (might be much better if it simply absorbed the next X incoming attacks or a specific damage threshold increased by stacking it), this yields a format where condition damage becomes stronger, cleanse effects become stronger, sustained damage becomes stronger, timing becomes more important since it’s not just a burst ’em down format, and lastly purges becomes stronger.

Purge = Boon stripping abilities
Cleanse = Condition removing abilities.
Bunker = Heavy survivability
Burst = TONS of damage

TL;DR: Balance is rarely solved by nerfing a profession, it’s by correcting the burst and damage reduction.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

“Characters suffering from confusion can be identified by twirling, purple tinted spiral over their heads. Additionally, the same effect will appear alongside damage dealt by confusion when using a skill. "

-GW2 Wiki

Most of the conditions have a very subtle visual cue, but it’s no where near as effective as looking down at your bar. That said, it’d be nice to have control over the visual cue, to emphasis it more or to tone it down, and preferably for each particular condition as well. I personally don’t care about the cripple as it’s easy to tell I’m moving slow, but all the damage dealing ones could use a bit of an enhance (optionally) to increase visibility, easier to have little icons next to my characters head though, nice brightly colored or even just white and black.

Jacobin.8509:

Yeah I agree with a lot of what you said. There is an untapped market here.

What concerns me is that very few MMOs have been able to come back after the initial interest dies off.

And this might be what separates GW2 from many other MMOs, the fact that the game is free to play when you want to try it again. As the OP said, when AN hosts a cash tournament with a large payout many of the players who own the game and have any ambitions in eSports are likely to pick it back up and play it and train for that tournament. It’s a pretty easy solution AFTER the balance has been obtained, whether they will be able to get a good balance from the limited number of players until that point is a question that must be recognized.

MMOs generally have a sub fee, and paying for a few months sub to play in a tournament no matter how much money is involved is not encouraging. This is where GW2’s power of subscription-less play becomes more powerful, coupled with the fact that face it, LoL gets mindless repetitive and boring too. DoTA and DoTA2 is in the same boat, it’s the same map(s) all the time, the same development, no matter how many new champs they include with new abilities you will either have the same Meta or some variation of the same thing. PvP is good simply because it’s a comparison to your (and your teams) skill versus another person or persons. The gear methods they’ve chosen set a standard, once balanced players will set the meta, and then playing your best within that meta will designate how good you really are both individually and as a team.

The real issue behind buffs and debuffs are the lack of visual indicator on your character in the game world, not the UI that shows me all my buffs and debuffs. If these buffs and debuffs could be closer to my character, even small icons right next to my characters head I would find them much easier to deal with.

A size scaling slider bar for controlling how large the icons are (for people who like them tiny, and other people who can’t see) would allow for an easy way to see if you have a specific condition on you, number of stacks could be completely optional but also have a slide bar for controlling size, preferably under a drop down menu connected to if turning on the icons in the first place.

@OP: Condition Mesmers aiming for confusion rarely are used, and rarely assault a node protected by a Ranger anyhow, so these are very uncommon events. The complaints to the conditions and boons being in the game in the first place seem a bit unwarranted as I’ve seen similar things in many games in the past. As to defending on a node as a ranger, the best I’ve seen is the Sword/Dagger Ranger who just evades all my attacks on Mesmer and pretty much lets his pet beat me. This is because Ranger Pets are invincible, just swap it out when it gets low on health, or at least that’s what he was doing when I decided to beat his pet instead. No clue what build he was using, but it gave me troubles on my Mesmer, never finished the fight before both teams showed up so I can’t tell you how it plays out, I might have eventually got him. At any rate, maybe try a different build?

Sadly like PvP in most games, it happens in seconds with little time to react. Excellent players respond to things in less than a half second, seeing animations out of the corner of their eye and responding near instantly.

So Dancing Dagger hit you 7 times in 4 casts, over 5 seconds or so, feels like you had a little time to respond, I understand given the team and lack of coordination that you were frustrated, I would be too.