Guild Wars 2

I would LOVE to see P/P get some loving to become a viable contender as a ranged weaponset.

The issues of rendering in WvW is a problem with stealth. That needs to be fixed on Anet’s end/the game’s end. Having revealed on a longer duration than it is for WvW may help some. Who knows how much, though. Again, this is on Anet’s end of things, not the class’ fault specifically. But I will say the stealth mechanic does need to be tweaked a little. How? I’m not on the balancing team, so I can’t say how. It’s just something to be looked at, considering high output damage that is coupled with it.

Perhaps tweak D/D might be in order to help along these issues. Again, how? I do not know, but giving it a look over isn’t unreasonable.

I prefer P/P over shortbow. Mostly because I really hate ground-target skills, and the other reason being dual pistols. Come on. Gunslinger duelists! Very flavorful and very stylish with how I am gearing out my Thief. So I hope P/P gets some good reworking so that it is a viable weaponset for us to use, and to actually make choosing a ranged set a challenge.

Seragi.5910:

Otaur.9268:

Thieves have medium armor =/= to lowest armor in game. That would be the Elementalist good sir. Lowest armor and Lowest HP.

oh man im sorry, my thief build has 13k hp and 900 toughness… please enlighten me on how your ele build is less hp and less armor? Also please tell me how my 1 heal skill matchs your 2 wep skill heals with combo AoE heals on top of your normal functioning heal? End of story Stop QQ cause your bad at your class

That is correct, though. Nothing said was untrue, so I do not understand the harsh response.

Elementalist has the lowest armor + HP in the game.

These are the baseline hp/armor numbers:

Thief- HP: 10805 / Armor: 1980
Elementalist- HP: 10805 / Armor: 1836

This isn’t about builds, it is about hardcoded system. It is what it is.

Zaphael.8694:

In fact, equally disturbing was the fact that I can no longer send a berserker up to smash a burning oil cauldron or cannon. I find it very very very hard to believe the ability to do so was unintentional. That ability was probably observed in WvW since BWEs and its surprising that it is only now that something was done about it?

Yeah, that came about with the LOS fixes for Mesmer. LOS is reasonable and should be addressed, but I feel right now it is far too unforgiving. Not only does a target need to be within range for a phantasm, it has to have perfect nearly even-ground LOS. I’ve had many, many issues when trying to cast phantasms on targets that were just slightly on higher ground (literally three steps up a stairway from me) would fail to cast and I get the obstructed issue. And that’s also part of the rub… your skills misfire and now you’re stuck on cooldown with nothing to show for it as well. If Mesmers had many other direct-damage skills to rely on, then it wouldn’t be a big issue — but we don’t. Everything relies on illusion creation with a bare few skills (like Mirror Blade and Blurred Frenzy) that direct damage.

On top of that, phantasm creation also fails when blinded/aegis/invulnerable/etc. protection or LOS-obscuring effects happen. Now we have the casting delay and phantasm attacking delay and the phantasm not even hitting sometimes on its first pass… that is just far too many variables and effects JUST for us to have some rather modest damage (3-3.5k~ exotic glass cannon).

In WvW, as the poster quoted mention, I now feel much less useful. At least with iZerker, I could throw them onto the top of buildings to help get rid of siege or attack enemies hanging over the edge. Now when against keeps I just use Focus to pull people… and… slowly run (due to our lack of sprint/IMS utilities, even though we are the masters of portals/space-time distortion) for supplies… I don’t feel that useful at all. Tweaking LOS so that you can’t throw your phantasm through solid platforms, sure. But if I can see an arrow cart on a keep wall, I should be able to cast on it. That is what LOS means. It should be reworked.

Uneven terrain also needs looking at with LOS. If my Guard with GS #3 and Warrior with sword #2 can fling themselves along uneven terrain (and they even coast along the path of the uneven terrain) to their targets without LOS/targeting issues, then my phantasms — and all of my attacks — shouldn’t have these problems either.

It is as Ayanavi says. Mesmer is one of the classes that requires you put a incredible amount of time, energy, and thought into in order to play effectively and combat threats, survive, and all while dealing any damage. There is a particular rhythm involved and it can be grueling in the 1-40 (and potentially even the 1-60, depending on content and build you use and current state of bugs) level ranges.

What input we put in for less output that many other classes can just one-skill. Guards and Wars with a greatsword can steamroll on through PvE content quite easily. It isn’t just because of their heavy armor nature. It has more to do with the easier dealing of direct damage output and utilities. Mesmers rely on illusions for everything, whether you are a shatterer or a phantasm or a hybrid in between, for survival and damage. There are many, many ways PvE content (and other players) can mitigate those sources of damage from even getting a chance to happen. Whereas other classes, when you press a skill — you get direct damage. We have a song and dance to go through.

I enjoy my main. It is why I joined GW2 and was my first character that I played and leveled up to 80 upon getting into headstart. But it doesn’t mean that I am blind to the many issues and inconsistencies of our class (not to mention the sheer amount of bugs integral to the class’ functionality). As things are right now, I just don’t think we get enough returns (and no, I’m not just talking about raw damage here, there can be many other complementary returns) for the energy and time investment we put in.

It definitely needs to be fixed. I love Deceptive Evasion, but the targeting priority mechanics are ridiculous.

^Part of getting that as much damage as possible, however, is having 25 points in Inspiration. The 25 point trait is ‘Phantasms do 15 percent more damage.’ This phantasm build is trying to utilize the 15 percent illusions trait, illusions bleed trait, 15 percent phantasms trait, and 3 percent damage per illusion out trait.

I personally use 20/20/0/20/10. I love Deceptive Evasion too much to let it go. And I trait in Phantasmal Haste.

I have the same issues when using Decoy. I am often till hit and targeted even after getting into stealth. And this is by regular #1 projectile attacks and other Mesmers using GS #1 and thieves using heartseeker and so forth. It is something I do not notice to such a degree when using stealth with my thief.

Another thing with Mesmer stealth vs. Thief stealth is that the combat slowdown (you slow down when in combat/or hit in combat) stays with my stealthed Mesmer. Stealthing for a few footsteps as I move away slooowly from being in combat. Yet with thieves, whenever I stealth I automatically get out of combat slowdown and am back at moving normally.

Regardless if a Mesmer has illusions out or not, I think when stealthed you should retain your normal out-of-combat speeds.

There may be a bit of extreme arguments on both side happening in this thread, by some posters, but in loosely general terms: the op is correct. Mesmers need to keep track of, strategize, think ahead, and use their environment and skills properly in order to be useful and maintain a decent damage rate. We, generally speaking and not focusing on any one build in particular, need to put in more energy and effort when playing this class for roughly 60-80% returns of other classes. In other words, we need to do more for less or equal output of other classes. Whether this is something people enjoy or not is an individual case by case basis. However, in my opinion, something does need to help alleviate the strain and stress and energy input.

For those of us that play Mesmers and are posting here, I think it is important that we speak from a place of consideration beyond our own builds. Something that affects one aspect of our class but may not affect you/your build could be affecting — or even crippling — a good chunk of our fellow Mesmers. Some things you may not need to notice or pay attention to with your build may very well be impacting fellow Mesmers to harsh degrees.

If we weren’t supposed to use phantasms or be able to make builds that relied upon phantasms, then they wouldn’t have been a part of our class and we wouldn’t have had many traits dedicated to improving/buffing/making builds from them. We’d simply be The Shatter class. The fact is that we do have these options available to us and it should be a viable source not only of dps and survivability, but also of diversifying our class’ options of what we can be and what players can build.

As is, phantasms do underperform right now as a source of reliable output. Shatter builds do much more and much faster. Certainly do not want shatter builds to be affected negatively in any way; their builds are fine and their damage is good. But there does need to be an overhaul of phantasms and the viability of phantasm builds. Whether that means a nitty-gritty reworking of our traitlines so that excelling in Phantasms causes our shatters to be more useless, and excelling in shatters makes phantasms more useless, I leave up to the dev teams. But something does need to be done that increases our energy input vs. output and our overall satisfaction (from all angles of builds) of the class.

A class shouldn’t need to painstakingly get to L40+ before they start feeling more capable and more useful and like they are able to do more output. A class also shouldn’t feel like they are forced into one or two specific builds just to play effective output. And a class’ balance should not solely be looked at through a lens of PvP.

I am uncertain what this foo-strategy is going on about. That relying on phantasms is lazy or something negative to do? Uh, an integral part of Mesmer IS their reliance on the illusion gimmick. Phantasm builds are viable builds. iBeserker is a phantasm that can be and is a part of that build and strategy. There is nothing wrong with it.

It’s like saying shatter builds utilizing Mirror utility to create two-clones instantly is a ‘foo strategy.’ No, none of it is. These are parts of our class and certain builds rely upon certain strategies/illusions.

I would enjoy Mesmer-y attire, more masques and stately nobility outfits, as well as more outrageous and flamboyant outfits. Mesmers aren’t exactly subtle, eh? As is, I really love the outfits with the exotic feathers sticking out all over, and the dramatic flourishes and intricate decal work.

For male (light/Mesmer) armor in particular, I’d like to see more skin-bearing armor as well. Ladies have all manner of questionable yet flamboyant and unique scanty light armors, using unique models. Male light armor is a lot of copy/past of the same clothing models.

LESS robes would be nice, too. More actual PANTS that do not come with robe/skirt/trench pieces stuck to them. The AC Light dungeon armor is a great example of actual pants and a stately attire. Not so much the lady version… eugh. But the male version, definitely. Actual pants as pants.

More steampunk and victorian age influence and inspiration couldn’t hurt, imo.

AEs insta-popping illusions as they are created has always been a problem, but putting yet more delay on our primary source of dps is ridiculous. Between LOS, blind, invulnerability, etc. causing our cast illusions to fail and the delay before attacking, it is becoming an incredible hassle to get through the game and still consider yourself a) useful to your team/PvE/WvW, b) having fun, and c) doing decent/reliable damage.

Our class gimmick IS the reliance on illusions to do damage, whether that is shatter or phantasm attacks. If our skills were direct damage skills like other classes, and illusions were just the added byproduct of the direct damage, then there would be much more wiggleroom for tweaking illusions. As it is now, they are vital for us to survive and dps.

I am glad that the delay is being looked at and is supposedly being changed, but .25 secs is still .25 too long. This argument of ‘giving people a chance to react to powerful summons’ is invalid, unless we want to ‘give people a chance to react to 100b/Stealth/Barrage/Aegis’ as well. Fundamental parts of a class to function shouldn’t be handicapped. If it’s causing too much trouble to balance, then, as I said, the class should be overhauled so that our skills do direct damage with illusions as the icing on the cake. As in, casting the iZerker skill causes damage on cast, and the iZerker phantasm is created and it does conditional damage of a kind. Basically, change phantasm damage to no longer be the main source of damage but causing various conditions, crowd control, dazes, stuns, etc instead.

As for some of the complaints about the iZerker damage being much lower lately, I will agree. I have played Mesmer since headstart. Mesmer has been my primary character. I have been L80 with all exotics and a phantasm build since September. I used to be able to get high crit damage (3k+) with my build on iZerker, now I am lucky if I can broach 1.9k. And considering how slow phantasms attack and the CDs, and all the conditions to cast them successfully, and the chances they can be destroyed by AEs easily, that’s not a very reliable amount of damage over time. If any particular class needs balancing (and not just more delays/nerfs/conditionals for use), it is Mesmer.

No chest mail for me yet… the majority of my guild received one today, but not me. Crystal Desert server.

Been happening to me since the last October patch. I used to have this issue constantly, but then two weeks prior to this things seemed to have cleared up. I had about two weeks of gaming without many (re: maybe one Network Error/7:11) problems in all that time. Now, suddenly, I am getting this every three to five minutes upon log-in.

I am in Washington state, in Anet’s backyard.
My timezone is Pacific Time (-8:00 UTC).
I play anywhere from 4PM – 12AM.

I’ve had this error before (along with Network Error disconnects) and it plagued my experience for nearly a month. About two weeks ago I stopped getting these problems and have had a relatively clean and clear experience — until today. This last patch/build seems to have messed something up and I am getting constant lag outs/Error 7:11. I can’t go more than 3-5 minutes before hitting this problem. Completely unplayable.

I’ve used all the tips, fixes, and tricks. Had techs from my ISP over and many diagnostics run from my ISP on their end and on my end, so it’s none of those issues. It started after this recent build patch. Too coincidental to not be related.

Tis the same on Crystal Desert. I have two full sets of keys and each door was locked. We had a 5-10 group of people at the door, of all servers (CD, Dragonbrand, TC), and no one seemed to be able to get in.

Still bugged on —Crystal Desert-- server. NPC is nowhere to be found!

I still get Network Error and Client disconnect issues (7 and 3032) way too often. It’s to the point where I can’t even continue my story missions because they take me so long to finish (solo) that by the time I’m reaching the end I’ll likely disconnect. It happens once an hour on a good day, every 5-10 minutes on a bad day.

I’ve done the shortcut /port 80 and even the New auth to no avail.

Well. That is disappointing. When I saw the patch note I got really excited… but nope, it still seems to function like it always has. One to two shots and then gone. And I notice the delay before the SoI health buff activating as well. If my phantasm (iBerserker, for example) has been out in place for eight or so seconds, then I notice she’s a bit harder to take down. But really, this delay stuff is a problem. There is no reason to have this in out utility bar if everything can one or two shot your illusions the same as if you didn’t even have SoI equipped.

Our illusions are already fragile and easily one-shot/two-shot aoe’d as it is, please remedy this.

~ Level 80 Mesmer (main character since headstart)

I just wanted to post here and sign my name on this issue. I have all ports forwarded, I watch my connection to make sure my router/modems aren’t disconnecting on my side of things, and I still get ridiculously frequent Network Error 3032 errors and game client can’t get a response messages.

When there is known maintenance going on behind the scenes I get these much more often, to the point where I’m being kicked out every five to ten minutes. Makes trying to do WvWvW/PvP/Dungeons/Personal Story missions impossible.

Yes, absolutely what Sparky said. There needs to be a grace period for PvP/resume from where you left off function for PvE. There is nothing more annoying than going into a personal story or dungeon, disconnecting, and then having to restart the entire story again (even if you have other people with you that should be holding the instance open) or re-enter and run through the entire dungeon again to catch up with the party.

As it is now, I am another person that gets many, many, many frequent network error disconnects due to the game’s maintenance turbulence. It would help if people like us could resume where we left off and have some kind of grace period for reconnecting.