Guild Wars 2

MacLeod.4208:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

MacLeod.4208:

Great topic Pyro!

Since it is the torch phantasm, it seems like it should burn foes. Since it can stealth the player, perhaps when it bounces to an ally it should stealth them for 1 second…just long enough to break target. Thoughts?

Something tells me, as much as it would rock it would just be to powerful

I was wondering about that. But it does only attack every 6 seconds.

But it would also bounce to any of your other phantasms or allies. If it hits a thief ally mid backstab combo, that would really screw things up for him. If it hit’s a phantasm, suddenly you got constant invisible zerkers that you cant see coming. That’s too OP.

MacLeod.4208:

Great topic Pyro!

Since it is the torch phantasm, it seems like it should burn foes. Since it can stealth the player, perhaps when it bounces to an ally it should stealth them for 1 second…just long enough to break target. Thoughts?

An easy way to break target would be awesome but this seems like it would troll your allies/you with random reveals.

I agree it needs a buff so I don’t understand the reason for the last half of your post. I think everyone agrees it still bad. Nevertheless, mesmers sometimes use the torch because torch 4 is still really good and the bonus condition removal can be nice. It’s a defensive & deceptive weapon. Turning the torch phantasms power up to 11 is not the way to go.

Mesmer duels can be up to 4 v 1. If the bounce doesn’t stack on one target, wouldn’t this be better for similar builds to the immortal mesmer? It would be 3 sec retaliation on 3 allies/illusions every 5 seconds. With a bit of boon duration, a mesmer could still run the “I hit you 7 times for every 1 time you hit me” builds. Constant retaliation to most of your illusions/you is deceptively powerful. Maybe OP (why else did they nerf Pyro’s build). I think the Devs are holding this skill back because they are scared of that being too much passive damage.

The confusion is still useless and the summon CD is still way too long. Replacing retaliation with Chaos armor would be defense/condition dmg while not being able to multiply damage with p.Defender. Changing the confusion to torment, burn or poison would also give the phantasm consistent damage that doesn’t stack with our 2 easy conditions (bleed/confusion). It won’t hit for 5k damage in 1 hit but all those small things will add up.

Skill use every 6 seconds with a cast time of 0.75 seconds. Skill use every 4.8 seconds with Phantasmal Haste.
The skill bounces twice and cannot bounce to a target more than once.

Phantasmal Mage 6.3s 5.27s

Anyone know which one of these is correct? Both of them are from the wiki but different pages. Also the bounce never hitting a target more than once? That just seems silly and maybe old, especially given that they changed the bounce mechanics recently. Anyone tested this with the new changes?

When proposing these buffs, you need to keep the current traits in mind.
Just thinking about 20/0/0/0/30 with elasticity/haste. If the bounce can hit someone more than once, you can double both the conditions and the boons received/conditions removed.

So with the proposed buffs and the numbers it would create: 15 sec CD to summon, ~5 second rate of attack. 5 stack/10 sec base would turn into 10 (if bounce works) stacks for 20 seconds every 5 seconds. Just 1 mage would be able to maintain 25 stacks of confusion on one target. That’s just 1 of them that is also giving boons/removing conditions. Then you want more conditions on it? It definitely needs a buff, but that is too much. Also, it’s a defensive/condi phantasms so it shouldn’t do as much damage as a power phant.

What I would like to see is chaos armor on allies instead of retaliation. The randomness would add a bit more to the deception since most people expect only the main mesmer to have chaos armor instead of the clones. Every 5 seconds, a new set of clones/mesmers now have chaos armor. Would be a silly game of magical chairs. Bringing the cooldown a bit would be great. Maybe if the confusion was changed to 1 stack of torment (bounce for 2) instead so it would do consistent damage. The chaos armor will do the confusion instead.

Sword/focus with the GS and shatters are the closest you will get to engineer aoe but it still won’t be like grenades.

Sword for the general melee cleave. Focus and GS phantasms are our 2 aoe phants. Focus 4 can help ball enemies up for easier aoe/melee. The GS auto attack hits up to 3 targets. GS 2 and 3 can be awesome or terrible when it comes to hitting several targets. I would not try to use gs 5 as an aoe nuke as it usually does more harm than good. Staff #5 is really good but I think it has too long of a CD while the rest of the weapon is mostly single target.

F1 and F2 can hit up to 5 targets but they are centered around your enemy (or you with IP). F2 is not as great when it comes to tagging mobs but it does do some power damage and if you time it well, the added confusion is often enough to tag a mob.

Edit: What is it about staff and 5 that becomes kittens.

There are a few boss (alpha for example) or enemies (karka) that attack fast enough for confusion to be decent. Still probably less damage than power builds but respectable. Then, as you noticed in the open world, most enemies in PvE attack so slow that confusion damage is really sad.

You can still use sharper images + illusions to stack bleeds and confusion can be a bonus but you should never build only for confusion. It will be “viable” in the sense that it isn’t negative DPS but if you don’t like it in the open world, you won’t like it in dungeons.

Awesome =). Will go and find them.

I salvaged an exotic MF set and a rampagers set. Those were my first two sets of armor. Exotic MF was for the best but I wish I didn’t salvage the rampagers.
Zerker:Ruby
Zerker:Melandru
Zerker (2 knights): Air
Soliders: Centaur
Rabid/rampagers set w/ TA runes. Also have two karma lyssa pieces for when I want more condition duration.

Swords… accuracy, force, night, perception, endurance, earth. I still don’t have enough swords ^^. I have at least 2-3 of every other weapon (Givers rampagers or zerker)

I’m holding off on creating a celestial set since they announced that ascended gear will be out by the end of the year. I really want to see how expensive/much of an increase they are before I start crafting anymore.

The space shows up because a youtube video is supposed to be there. However, it doesn’t show up for all browsers/settings.

Amazing video. You need to release a guide of all the blink spots you found with far reaching manipulations. Or maybe don’t, they will all get nerfed.

Expected a Queen rendition but your song is still awesome.

For scepter/sword, the 2 and 4 are counter attacks. The enemy needs to hit you for them to proc. The counter attacks can be very powerful if timed well: I used to hit upwards of 5-7k crits with both of those hits. The scepter 2 has been “nerfed” in the sense that half of that is now condition damage but it’s still decent damage. The other thing is that your target needs to be the one that procs the block (might be a problem with combat mod). So depending on your timing it can be anywhere between 20k dmg in 1 second (2 clones for mindwrack) or 0 damage over 4 seconds.

The alternative is that you double tab 2 or 4. Double tapping 2 is a wave of blind while double tapping 4 is a wave of daze.

Scepter 3 does require you to be looking at your target the whole time.

Keeping 25 stacks of vulernability lets your team do 25% more damage. That’s pretty good in dungeons. Against world bosses… who cares. In pvp/wvw you won’t be able to sustain it but retraiting is dirt cheap. Sword 4/4 just got buffed so it’s even better for your build though.

Any class can cover any/all roles but it’s a matter of how optimally/what you define as a role. Example: Giving your team protection (33% less dmg taken) isn’t that different than keeping enemies weakened (average 25% less dmg done) but the first is the “guardian way” and the second is the “necro way.” Same thing with Aegis vs blind or might vs vulnerability. However, bosses are “defiant” and blind, weakness, vulnerability and other debuffs are not as effective vs bosses. Having both if great. If I had to pick one as optimal, I would go with the “guardian way” or in general, boons. That doesn’t make the alternative not viable though. If you want to do speed runs with the leet crowd, your build wouldn’t fly but I see no problem with it in pugs and you wouldn’t be negative DPS to your team.

I got at least 100h on each profession. If you want advice, I can help you pick an alt.

I agree with the scepter being a better power weapon despite the nerf. However, I don’t think your number comparisons are fair. It’s really hard to compare base power to condition damage as one can crit but the other isn’t affected armor.

Don’t get celestial accessories. Get celestial chest/legs or weapons if you want those. The ascended celestials are just bad in comparison.

If you want to go for a % damage sigil, ideally you have a berserker sword of night (10% dmg at night). You can transmute this onto a ghastly weapon to make it easier to tell when it’s boosted. When it isn’t night, it comes down to if you want a sigil of force 5% always or impact 10% for not very often. None of these affect phantasms or condition damage though. So basically, if you CC someone then do a blurred frenzy/mindwrack combo, the impact might be worth the spike damage increase. If not, sigil of force is a better choice.

After reading the rest of the patch, there were a few minor bug fixes/changes and a lot of text correction but I think the mesmer was the only class that recieved a “major buff.”

I’d have to try out counter blade in PvP before deciding if it’s worth it though. Hitting upwards of 7k ripostes is really hard to pass up. Also, the p.duelist might have been stealth nerfed. If they looked at the trait, is it still a 100% finisher when traited? As every major patch, we still need to look for any stealth changes as well.

Veil might be a slight buff for our anti conditions abilities with finishers but it doesn’t seem worth it.

From the wiki

Sigils with cooldowns
All sigils that have a cooldown share the same cooldown timer; while the timer is active, no other sigil with a cooldown can trigger. For example, if you are using a Sigil of Fire (flame burst on critical) and a Sigil of Battle (might stacks on swap), you will have to wait after swapping weapons (Sigil of Battle activated) before the flame burst can trigger on critical.

Sigils will enter cooldown even if you do not gain any benefit. For example, a Sigil of Purity will trigger and enter the 10s cooldown even when the wearer has no conditions.
All things equal, the mainhand cooldown sigil will trigger before the offhand cooldown sigil.

So in general, I would run 1 weapon swap sigil per swap OR 1 cit sigils on different sets but never try to run both a weapon swap and crit sigil at the same time.

I would think that servers and overflow would each have there own areas. So you need to multiply your numbers by at least 24 (+ overflow) and overflows are created as more people go to 1 specific map. Karka event had at least 10 overflows if not more. That’s just for NA.

Phantaram.1265:

Keep in mind my tier list is made for this meta, small changes can bring certain classes up to A tier very suddenly and be great classes.

S Tier:
=Necromancer
=S/D Thief
-Spirit Ranger

A Tier:
+Guardian
-Engineer

B Tier:
=Warrior
= Elementalist
-Mesmer

Mesmer is probably the most volatile, the second a team wouldn’t run a s/d thief and necro it’d probably be S Tier lol

Something else to notice is that there aren’t as many C tier ratings being thrown out anymore. Someone mentioned there is maybe no B tier either. I agree with phant, really minor adjustments needed. Like probably a 5-10% change in a few numbers at most.

A glass cannon warrior with some buffs can easily hit for around 18k (I’m assuming you just missed the 1 when you typed) and maybe upwards of 20-24k. It’s a glass cannon build and it can be reflected for great results though. It’s also really easy to see it coming.

I have had sword 4 hit for upwards of 7k dmg and spawn a clone. This and runes of air +F1 usually spells a very quick death for thieves. It is a dangerous game of rocket tag though.

For PvE, my default set is sword/focus/sword. I mention it because I don’t think a lot of people realize you can have only 1 main hand and 2 off hands.

Edit: As for the finishing trick, maybe he used a phase retreat blink combo on you. Looked like a clone started stomping but it was actually the mesmer the whole time.

Esplen.3940:

Sigils of Accuracy are viable choices on Phantasm (and even Shatter) builds, since they are confirmed to work on Phantasms (and Clones) with a recent change.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Stealth-buff-to-Sigil-of-Accuracy/first#post2374109

My initial testing showed that it was adding up but with a greater sample size, I found that it probably does not. Did anyone else check this or were you referring to my work?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Its not all about killing things faster so “Which one of those helps you kill faster?” doesnt really matter now does it? iDisenchanter isnt exactly the strongest illusion, can easily be killed and has a (imo) ridiculous cast time though the cool down is decent the rest of it is very meh. AT has a long cool down and so does Nullfield AND requires you to stay in the field for you to get conditions removed – not always possible.

Why do you keep bringing up utilities that I’m not talking about? I’m talking about runes/food and 1 trait. Nullfield is an option for team fights to supplement the trait/food/runes.

Most mesmer builds used to be low vit/toughness. In a condition heavy meta, high vit/low toughness is fine.

If you have 65% condition duration reduction:
Scepter auto: base 5 seconds (100% increase then 65% decrease)= 3 ticks of bleed.
IF they max condition damage(25 stacks of corruption/undead/food) (70% increase then 65% decrease)=284 bleed damage (2 ticks) per scepter auto and ~300 power dmg. If they crit? 1 second bleed for 142. Compared to power builds with some defensive gear, that isn’t dangerous.

RE: Distortion. It’s an proactive defense not reactive defense. It can stop conditions from happening to begin with. That is good enough.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I have yet to meet any Necromancer or Engi that has managed to kill me 1 Vs 1, so condition damage doesnt really worry me. I have several ways to get out if it comes to that, i would rather be offensive then defensive when it comes to runes.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

How many have you faced in WvW or T/SPvP?`at the VERY best you wont die early but you WILL die.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Just because they are a condition build that doesnt mean that they cant do damage in other ways. Building just to counter Conditions mean that you wont have the power to actually kill them, taking all the possible utilities for condition removal means less for anything else.

So a rabid necro does great power damage but a zerker mesmer does no dmg? Especially considering that the necro scepter auto attack will hit for like 300 power dmg.

Meanwhile, that anti-condi mesmer can still have a zerker amulet with 10-20 dom & 20 dueling. Not restricted to any weapon. 30 illusions does add about 33% to MW spikes and is about a 60% shatter dps buff but shatters aren’t the only source of mesmer damage. Main mesmer attacks and phantasms will be hitting the same or 15% harder. This is not as much of a DPS loss as you claim and the mesmer will be doing more damage than the necro while having much more defense.

Of course there is the utility issue. Blink, portal, and IoL was a very common set up for high end tpvp mesmers. Which one of those helps you kill faster? Stop saying you need to bring every condition removal that mesmers have avaible. Just 1 trait and maybe 1 utility if you want to feel extra safe. Or just runes/food with no change to traits/utilities.

Distorting reality around you doesn’t change the fact that you are bleeding. Use blurred frenzy to prevent those condition from happening to begin with.

I forgot about the ult and conceded that they might bring 1 source of stability. It’s still not a great source of stability. Bonus points for finding that spelling mistake earlier too. Now how about you discuss the main argument.

If a mesmer strips the condis fast enough, what sustainable offense or defense does that “OP” necro have? How is a shattered condition mesmer not a hard counter to a condi necro meta?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

You seem to totally miss the point EVERY time. AoE Boon removal is decent not exactly required though is it? Neither is Portal. Sure we have good spike damage, however Necro can spike ALOT while fearing you as well as the ability to stay at range and could use Lich just for the fun of it to make sure you die. What Elite can we use to a similar effect?….

What point am I missing? That the mesmer should always be required? Why should any skill/class be required in a balanced game that has 5 slots per team and 8 professions.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Moa_Morph
“A successful cast will end any forms in use by an enemy such as Tornado or Lich Form.”

1 easily stolen/stripped stability on a 180 second cd >_> So powerful. I was more so talking about consistent necro stability like foot in the grave but sure. They might have 1.

I would say tangent not derailed. Rune’s should not be decided in a vacuum but with the meta in mind. Of course, how strongly the meta influences your choice/build leads to the question of if that meta is OP or not.

Shattered conditions does cost 30 points to get but you gain a lot of team support with that line. I would think 10/20/0/30/10 or 20/20/0/30/0. As I think you said earlier in this thread, it’s about risk vs reward. What defense/offense does a condi necro have with their conditions being wrecked? They don’t have evades, blocks, or vigor and have minimal protection in that build. No stability if they are condi. High health is not high sustain.

There are both risky and hard counters to that necro meta and I stand by mesmers being fine right now. I agree with the runes.

Weakening shroud takes about 1 second to go off after the necro goes into death shroud. Just using phase retreat as he enters death shroud negates that entire first combo. If the necro wants fears to be 50% longer, then you can just dodge through the marks. If he has the staff/marks traited, just use blink.

Actually… something I never paid attention to, do clones trigger marks?

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It’s not allowed in WvW or sPvP.

Also to be clear, the recipe is exotic and tradeable, but the output of said recipe is not.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The portal is a one-time use consumable that effectively allows you to use a skill that is similar to the mesmer’s portal. We recognize that it’s a very powerful item, so the recipe is quite rare and takes considerable resources to manufacture.

GG Mesmers.

I should have been more clear with this. That’s a dev. The portal item will be expensive. Those jump skills wont matter when it comes to other people. There are items that give you jump shots >_>.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

More clarification:

• It’s an artificer recipe
• You can trade the output of the recipe between characters on your account
• The recipe makes a one-time use item, it does not unlock a new skill
• This is not going to replace a mesmer in your party

One more dev quote.

From the blog

Watchwork Mechanisms
Watchwork tech is the latest and greatest innovation in Tyria. Watchwork parts can be used in new crafting recipes or as currency in the Crown Pavilion to buy items like new rune and sigil recipes, Watchknight Tonics, or the new Sovereign Weapon Set. You might even find the recipe to assemble a Watchwork Portal Device, allowing you to create a personal portal!

I’m pretty sure personal means only you use the portal.

How easily are those necros generating life force? Scepter 3 and staff auto? Those are pretty bad for a condi necro and just bad in general for LF gen. Trait’s wont be giving them any. So utilities or basically spectral grasp on a 15 sec cooldown. Toughness is def there from the armor but they most likely have little to no defense from their traits if go 30/20/0/0/20 to be truly dangerous.

Have you just been running a 20/20/0/0/30 then? I agree that toughness is near useless in this meta.

Actually, when the necro was buffed there was instant QQ. Even necros were creating posts stating that they were too OP and they didn’t want that much power.

You haven’t even fought a bleed warrior. You have only seen a video of a good player countering glass cannons. You somehow “know” it’s going to be nerfed despite it being a weak build. Do you realize how absurd that sounds? From someone asking for condi mesmer buffs, this is rather absurd.

65% less condition duration is basically 65% less damage from a condi build. Of course necros can be power instead. That’s how build diversity and the “rock paper scissor” balance works. Guess what? Life blast is a projectile. Your a mesmer. OMG MESMER OP. You remind me of all the whiners complaining about the infamous 30/30/30/30/30 mesmer that could do everything and couldn’t be countered except now it’s a 30/30/30/30/30 zerker rabid necro.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Xavi.6591:

-60% Condition Duration is pretty good imo, especially since conditions are the latest OP meta, even in WvW. You don’t have to run condition removal.

In WvW its not a problem, i have yet to be killed by a Necro 1 Vs 1 so i dont really worry about conditions

65% for mel, 60% for hoelbrak +lemongrass.
I think that settles wvw. Let’s talk about 2 necros. How much AOE are two condi necros bringing that clones couldn’t survive in for 2 seconds before we shatter them?

Single target bleeds/poison from scepter auto attack. 2 necros: 2 x ~3 sec burn on 1 target every 10 seconds (this got nerfed in pvp). That sounds pretty easy to counter with an F1 shatter removal. Speaking of nerfs, that necro is going to need to be running a 30/30/20/0/20 (not possible) for all the stuff I’m talking about. Doesn’t matter if they get epidemic off before or after because either way, the conditions disappear in an aoe.

2x Torment every 34 seconds: move out of the way or a F3.

Fear(terror). Staff fear got nerfed with the trait adjustment and only happens every 40 seconds. It can now be dodged unless traited for (20 points instead of 10 now). Spectral wall is 1 second every 45 seconds (shorter CD if you don’t have 50% more fear duration). Doom every 17 seconds x2 is the fear that is particularly scary and we still got F2 and F4 to use. Also, there are stun breaks for fear. So what’s left? Weakness, blind, chill? Those F2 F3, and F4s are still taking care of other conditions as well.

So that’s one build that can basically counter the bulk/all of 2x necro condi builds. Actually that isn’t even 1 build, thats just 30 inspiration and probably 20 dueling. Null field would make it even easier. Those necros are pretty glass btw. You are of course giving your team vigor while your at it so they should be dodging more of those necro moves. Can still run zerker gear as a mesmer.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It’s not allowed in WvW or sPvP.

Also to be clear, the recipe is exotic and tradeable, but the output of said recipe is not.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The portal is a one-time use consumable that effectively allows you to use a skill that is similar to the mesmer’s portal. We recognize that it’s a very powerful item, so the recipe is quite rare and takes considerable resources to manufacture.

GG Mesmers.

Oh no, a typo!

That spirit can die in 4 hits. It also doesn’t distort/move out of the way of interrupts. Mass AOE boon removal and portal are still our thing. Our spike damage hasn’t changed that much. So necros get buffed and now our previous builds weakness is exploited. So warriors are, for a fact, getting nerfed?

Seriously… who is complaining about that weak build?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior

Where are the complaints? You “don’t want a nerf” but your the only person I see that “knows” a nerf is going to happen because “people are complaining.” The only reason a bleed warrior was brought up in this thread is because your build has no anti condition and it was pointed out that you would die to it.

Runes and food? Cost is maybe 15% of our damage or speed options? That is definitely sacrificing everything when your enemies damage is reduced by 65%.

A 20/20/0/30/0 sacrifices everything to make his team immune to conditions >_> A loss of about 33% of the shatter spike combo but a 15% increase in phantasm dmg (still part of a shatter spike). Why haven’t mesmer managed to spawn Cthulhu with all this sacrificing? or do clones not count?

I believe you mean scepter/sword. Try the main hand sword for some aoe damage. One of the best weapons we have. Shatters are also aoe that hits 5 targets vs 3 from most melee attacks. The focus and gs phantasms are aoe. We don’t have much else on a short cool down.

If you love the sword then 10 dueling is the best way to go. In general, I recommend trying to be a glass cannon mesmer while leveling because it teaches you all of our active defense. 10 Domination is a nice follow up. 20 Dueling once you have that unlocked for a lot more clone generation.

At higher lvls your options open up a lot more and traits will depend on your preferred play style. So stop by again when you get to 40/60 and have decided what you like.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I am NOT saying i want them nerfed…

The simple fact that they can do alot of condition damage, plenty of toughness, VERY high health and CC i think it WILL get nerfed. Its just a matter of time before S/TPvP and WvW is over run with them, just like Necors at the moment.

Saying they will get nerfed is on some level endorsing the idea that condi warriors are OP. Your description also makes them sound a lot more powerful than they are. You also give an idea of how the nerf should look like in your opinion. To me, that sounds like you want them nerfed but won’t admit it.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The fact of the matter is they WILL be nerfed when enough people complain about ti, that is how Anet works – what ever build/class has the most “nerf this class/build” threads and posts you can bet they will nerf it.

The fact? The fact of the matter is that Anet balances with mostly tPvP in mind. tPvP won’t give a crap about that warrior build.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I think the reason for that is we offer NOTHING in TPvP, you can bet that if we were even just Viable (which we are not) then you can bet that it would be nerfed like everything else. Currently we are no threat in TPvp and thats why we aren’t getting that nerfed yet (Yet being the key word)

Nothing? You must be a genious while all those top teams must have been failures to bring a mesmer for such a long time. What we offer hasn’t changed much. The current meta is simply not conducive to the old build.

Nerfed like all the nerfs that anet hands out, because they never buff/balance/tweak. Why exactly did the ranger meta swap to spirits now?

Pyroatheist.9031:

This build does stack confusion very effectively for sure. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all it does. If your target fails to spam buttons during the few seconds your confusion is on them, your damage potential really drops to almost nothing.

I wouldn’t say the build does nothing else. He has generic glamour utility. The p.duelist and staff clones can still get upwards of 12 stacks of bleeds. The torment is situational but nice. Sigil of Doom would help a lot with adding some poison in there.

I would not recommend using F2 at the start of a fight though. Try to keep 1 or 2 duelist up and time your fields with the 2nd volley.

I agree with most of Ross’s changes except signet of domination. If I’m stunned for 3 seconds, I would have a much easier time seeing that confusion stack and it would have probably worn off by the time I’m no longer stunned.

In a condi heavy meta, who is going to whine about warriors when so many classes do condis better?

Very high toughness? A full ZERKER PU mesmer with protection has about the same effective armor as this warrior. The only thing that might have merit is that he has about 1k/second health regen (IFF he doesn’t burst). It seems ridiculous until you realize that necro scepter auto attack would still wreck him while being able to send his conditions back at him. Actually, any consistent condi+poison spam would get to him. Also, he specced really heavy to get that tanky. He deserves it.

Standard Runes of Meladru/Food make his burst bleeds last 1 second. So basically his burst does 900 bleed dmg. Then we got warriors doing 22k eviscerates in wvw. Auto attack bleeds will last 5 seconds. Burn won’t do anything. His CC will be 1 second immobilizes and a .75 second stun… Don’t even need condition cleanses or stun breaks against this guy. Or just send the bleeds back to him with generosity and trickery.

If you claim you don’t want it nerfed, don’t be passive aggressive and propose any nerfs.
Cause if that gets nerfed, it’s only fair that sharper images got nerfed with it >.<

Why would a condi warrior like that get nerfed? He isn’t even using poison (sigil) or the new torment they just got. 3 seconds of burning every 30 seconds or so and otherwise only bleeds. This is like a gs mesmer stacking lots of bleeds and nothing else. It preys on people with no condition removal/reduction and sucks vs the rest.

Have to agree with Azure, this won’t get nerfed nor does it need to be nerfed. Other classes still do condition bunkers better.

You mention a meta… then you mention “best builds.” This is not a problem with our traits. It’s a problem with your understanding of “metas.”

20/20/0/0/30 was a best build of yesterday. It was the only build that high end mesmers ran with little to no variation. If that is your only build choice, then it isn’t any different from a game designed for 0 traits or everyone going 30/30/30/30/30. The end result is that there is no meaningful choice.

Metas give a semblance of choice. Old “best builds” fall out of play while new ones take there place. Meta-counter builds develop and the scene evolves. Ideally, as the game matures, the meta will become complex enough that all/most of our “best builds” are viable in the same meta. GW2 is rather young though and hasn’t reached that point.

Right now, blimm is doing a good job of trying to figure out the mesmer’s new best build. Specifically, the best anti-condi support/dps mesmer. Overall, I would say he is doing a good job. This is while using the trait that you deem too weak. It seems to be working well for him so I have to disagree with your opinion. It’s fine.

RE: your adjustment to the proposed trait. You didn’t state that it was AOE or not but the trait is AOE. Kind of a safe assumption. The current trait is a steady source of condition removal for a team which is what we need in this meta. Internal CDs would be a huge nerf to the steadiness. Gaining RNG protection/aegis on distortion is useless.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Shattered Conditions: Remove 2 stacks of conditions per a Shatter (so 8 with IP) and replace them with Boons that last 10seconds.

The Boons: Regen, Aegis, Protection, Stability(?) and Might

You are the one that proposed the protection from this trait. Do I really need to repeat your post twice for you to remember what you wrote? Without stability/might: 10 base(14-18) seconds of regen OR aegis OR protection from EACH shatters in an AOE. 0/0/0/30/20 with 20 points to spare is getting you upwards of 24 clones shattered a minute with just F1/F2. RNG…. who cares about RNG when you are shattering like crazy. Even without any points in illusions you are still getting 24 clones shattered/minute if you use F1-F4. Signet of inspiration to then double all of those boons.

Between your proposed trait and staff #5, you will be giving out an average of 12 aegis procs a minute, perma AOE vigor, regen, and protection while effectively making your team immune to conditions. Traits/signet of illusions will up those numbers even more. That is OP.

RE: Inspiration and shatters. Who cares if most of the traits are for phantasms? You can still use 2 shatter traits with 30 inspiration. Glamours don’t care if you are shatter or phantasm. Focus reflection is still good. A shatter specs still benefit from phantasms hitting harder. The retaliation nerf sorta favors shatter builds. Get phantasms out for 1-2 waves of attacks then shatter them since the retaliation is gone. Regen from phants? Why bother if you implement your buff.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Who says you lose out on 20 in dueling? We have 5 trait lines that are all very tempting to go at least 20 if not 30 into. That is a lot better than most classes. Of course we “lose” something but that is good kind of “loss.”

I agree, we have loads of great traits spread all over the place but we also have to many average/rubbish traits as well. Loss of damage is good? lose of survivability good?

Taking this to two extremes, zero or 150 trait points to spend would be boring. Having 70 but only 1 viable build is no different than the first two cases. The fact that there are such diverse mesmer builds is an indication that we can throw our points in any line and have something that is mostly viable and balanced. When someone picks domination vs chaos or any of the choices we have, of course damage or survivability is lost. The fact that we can choose and those are meaningful choices are what make them a “good loss.”

That is problematic. I think the 15% dmg is still good for shatter builds as you might as well let your phants hit hard before you shatter them/ waiting to counter a condition burst.

Since they nerfed the retaliation, I sorta hope they make it 5 seconds of retaliation on all illusions. Would make the line a bit more “shatter friendly.”.

The proposed buff would make regen phants unnecessary.

You mentioned the stability and might in a suggestion that you claim to be “perfectly fine.” >.<

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Shattered Conditions: Remove 2 stacks of conditions per a Shatter (so 8 with IP) and replace them with Boons that last 10seconds.

The Boons: Regen, Aegis, Protection, Stability(?) and Might

Even without it, perma vigor, regen, and protection in an aoe with lots of aegis procs is still really good. In fact, without might, its even better with less RNG.

Your assessment of “meh” is the problem. It should be “decent if you need it in your build.” Even if half the traits suck, is your assessment trying to deny that it is a powerful line? If so, you failed pretty hard.

Who says you lose out on 20 in dueling? We have 5 trait lines that are all very tempting to go at least 20 if not 30 into. That is a lot better than most classes. Of course we “lose” something but that is good kind of “loss.”

Going 30 in inspiration is rather common for mesmer builds so you aren’t “losing” elsewhere. It is an extremely powerful line. Also, with it being for your whole team, giving regen, aegis, prot, stability, or might on every clone shattered would be refreshing perma regen/protection/stability (you would obviously spec boon duration) with aegis about every 10 seconds or so. Do you really not see how that is OP?

I think Blimm has done a good job of showing why it’s worth getting. He even got a high end tpvp mesmer to try it out and he/she liked it.

Edit: Also AOE vigor >_>
Edit for grammar.

Stick with your mesmer if you like it but don’t ignore your alts. I would at least try all the classes or just check them out in pvp so you see what a lvl 80 can do. My mesmer is my main at about 1k hours on her. 7 alts have a total of 1k hours as well. I like to consider my account as a stable of heros.

Sometimes it just depends on the mood your in. Easy mode? GC Warrior or AH Guard. Noobs need to be carried through ac exp p1? solo most of it with my ele. Up for a challenge/shenanigans? Grab the mesmer or engineer. My thief, necro, and ranger, despite the recent buffs, are actually not getting too much play time. Not enough time/don’t find them as fun.

One more thing: My mesmer has 6 sets of armor/gear for different builds. Mesmers can definitely pull off a lot of things but they do require specialization.

Balance, Bug-Fixing, Polish
Items

Rune of Melandru: Fear duration is now only reduced once by this rune set. The negative stun duration bonus no longer reduces incoming fear duration. This is also true for food consumables that offer a negative stun duration bonus.

That only used to be true for 1 kind of “stun.”

Are you sure you are doing it for the same person tier 1, 2, 3, 4? That sucks though.

@ Helios, the politics update added an instance that pits you against waves of aether blades. You can bring 5 people but it scales much better with 1-3. You need to kill plunderers who are trying to take your treasure. At low lvls you can kill the adds but at higher lvls of difficulty (3-4) you need to avoid them.

Go to the labrinthine cliffs and near the top to access the challenge. You can support evon or kiel but the challenge stays the same.

I went easy mode and sniped them with kill shot on my warrior. I still learned some random stuff that can help though.
If you want to lose aggro, go for a quick swim. Those aether blades really don’t want to get wet.
Stay near the mortars but kill the vets before the mortars because the vets will grenade you if they don’t have their mortars.
The left and middle sides are the easiest to take care of. The right side was the only problematic one. Bleed the right ones and try to nuke them a bit but DO NOT chase. The bleed is important for keeping them in combat so they don’t regen. When they are running back, you should be able to finish them off. Also, on the right side, there are rocks you should stand on to minimize aggro.
30/30/0/0/10 with the daze mantra and signet of domination traited should be enough to snipe them fast enough.
If you still need help, whisper me later tonight, I helped a guildy in a 2 man and it’s still easy then.

A few questions for your zerker support shatter:
How do you get around the map? You don’t have any swiftness/blink/portal. I figured with a support build, why not use centaur runes to give AOE swiftness and vigor and maybe glamour cd for more portal instead.

With no weapon skill CD/celerity, most of your clones are coming from DE? That doesn’t seem like much. How often do you shatter with a full set of 3 illusions. I ask because of your damage trait set up. MW without IP and only 1 or 2 clones doesn’t seem worth the damage.

You have phantasmal fury and 15% more dmg (inspiration) but you chose 20% more MW. Would you be better off with more phantasm dmg? Summon double phantasms for a quick spike. Leave the shatters for defense. Maybe even trait your signet for a 72 sec cd?

What are your teammates running?

With all of the wvw tokens the achievement chests are giving out, visit the wvw vendors for some cheap exotics/ascended gear. Temple of balthazar has exotic cavalier accessories for 42k karma. I think those are part of osicats build or will at least bridge the gap to ascended gear.

Without the 60% condition duration reduction in osicats build, you don’t have any condition removal and sigil of generosity won’t work with your set up. Force or accuracy is probably the way to go. At least try to eat the anti condition food.

I also don’t think runes of altruism is worth it. Better to stack more boon/might duration.
3 stacks @ 15.5 seconds every 20 seconds vs your stacks of battle lasting 40% longer for a bonus 8 seconds on each weapon swap. I think you weapon swap more often than you heal or at least you should be. Alternative would be 2 water/2 monk for 30% longer boons.

You really got to learn to love melee in gw2. Especially with an IP shatter build.

If you could link your current build, that would help a lot in helping you.

I think the bigger problem is that all of the inspiration minors are phantasm traits while the grandmasters are shatter traits. Now that vengeful images is nerfed, they could at least make it last 5 seconds on all illusions. That way replenishing illusions often would sort of make sense for the inspiration line. This would also not change the phantasm aspect of this trait line (well… not nerf it further).

Vigor and condition removal for allies on shatters. Glamour cooldown on buffed null field. Signet of domination buff. I’m convinced that the devs are trying to make mesmer enablers of glass cannon +50% crit chance glass cannon warriors to counter the condi meta. 20/20/0/30/0 or a 10/0/0/30/30 shatter/phantasms hybrid support build?

It isn’t the shatter mesmer we usually see but like most classes, 1 build rarely stays around the entire games life span.

DE doesn’t need to be moved or changed in any way.

I agree with conditions being bad in groups/dungeons but those dud bleeds are happening regardless of what condition damage you have. It really does come down to the potential. I don’t PvP that much so I cant comment on that.

Pyroatheist.9031:

What that analysis shows is that celestial is better in most cases for a build that wants to maximize crit damage, but falls behind for a build that wants to maximize about anything else. Even though the number of useful points is still higher in some cases, celestial gear is so spread out that if you just want to focus on a couple stats, you shouldn’t take it…unless that stat is crit damage.

I have to disagree. You can not look at just maxing crit damage in a vacuum.

What about a build that wants to maximize defense while minimizing the loss in damage.
Comparing knights to celestial: same effective power (considering 3 power stats)
Comparing zerker to celestial: 9% effective power damage loss.

Other stats:
Knights: 315 toughness OR ~ 16% damage reduction.
Celestial: 140 toughness OR ~ 7% damage reudction and 140 vit/healing power.
140 condition damage OR ~ 16% increase in base bleed damage.

Since sharper images +illusions and/or the staff is rather common in mesmer builds, a 9% loss of power but 16% increase in bleeds is potentially comparable if not more damage than full zerker gear. Mathematically more damage than going knights armor. Mathematically more defense than going zerker armor. It’s not about maxing “useful points or crit dmg.” It’s about maxing total damage and still having more defense than zerker.

Math is based on 20 domination/dueling with zerker weapons/accessories. This seems like a fairly common mesmer set up. With 30 into chaos/inspiration/illusions the condition and defense # will change do to diminishing returns. Example: 30 chaos would change the knights/celestial damage reductions to 14% or 6.4% respective damage reduction.