Condi specs for mesmer unlike engineer and warrior have horrendous cleaving potential and don’t frontload conditions anywhere near as well, in addition to having low base numbers on their power portions unlike the engineer and warrior.
Basically, on any run where thrash pulls and clears are involved, you’re a liability for the group. On bosses you have a ton of ramp up and barely break even with ele and warrior, and fall still considerably behind thief.
Mesmer in PvE by virtue of how their weaponskills and illusion mechanic works will continue to be a power based class outside PvP.
You’re also forgetting Chronomancer wells for all intents and purposes are power-centric.
Warden is the condi cleave weapon now with bleeds and confusion on crits. Duelists for single targets. Furthermore, sword crits = vulnerability (now affects conditions) and confusion. What gets crazy is how chronophantasma works if there is some reset to attack rate as it will explode the numbers of condi stacks. Mistrust+MoD is potentially insta stack of 10 confusion. Focus pull when timed well will also add a lot of confusion aoe. SotE or F5 or the new DD as mentioned above can quickly get 3 illusions out and frontload.
The ability to keep 3 phantasms alive is an issue but again DD can keep that recharge really low IFF interrupt traits work. That’s why I created the earlier thread about interrupts not working on the break bar. Even if his math isn’t perfect, it still doesn’t include the mesmer’s damage or the power damage from phantasms. Sinister is a thing (30% dps loss over zerker but +1k condi dmg). So 14k from just condis from just duelists…. then add 25 vulnerability to that which is probably the 1.25 at the end? Now add combo fields for stacking burning or something. Then add sword auto attacks for confusion. Then add power damage. It’s crazy good.
The big 2 issues are:
1)Reflects are weaker and a zerker mesmer can also stack these conditions at almost the same rate with might bringing them up to the 700 condi dmg scale change.
2) Condi duration calculations are probably way off. +40% food but we need the chaos line to get 3% condi duration for each boon on us. Realistically ~12%. Runes that affect bleed/confusion only give +15% max. Would require giver’s weapons and expensive crystals.
Those are PvE warrior builds. We are mostly discussing a PvE mesmer build. While I might trait HM for the 3rd charge in PvP, that’s still a hard sell compared to DE and 4% ferocity bonus in a game mode with much lower ferocity and precision numbers is not great.
If you want to talk about PvP warrior builds, shout heals give 8 adrenaline on shout ftw. Weapon swap for 5 adrenaline + burst mastery is still a thing. Cleansing ire as you mentioned before is still a thing. With all of those you can blow through all of your burst skills, never hit with any of them and still have max adrenaline vs that.. thief.
By no strings attached, I think most of us mean so easy to maintain as part of a good dps rotation it’s basically a passive 20% always. Very different from having to constantly use MoP and spam 1 button over and over again in a tedious way. The traits mentioned are not something crazy that no warrior would pick, they are good choices in their own right and syngerize well.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/combat-changes-dotsanddashes/
Vulnerability will affect conditions. This solidifies my use of sword/pistol+focus for both zerker and condi builds now.
Dom, Duel, Chaos is too good to let go now. Chaos gives condi dmg, condi duration and might. Dom+ sword now stacks plenty of vulnerability when paired with interrupts. Only think I’m torn on is power block. For PvP, I’ll still use it but for PvE, longer CD might reduce confusion but confusion is now split so it’s less of a big deal.
The math I just did for rampager vs sinister is off now with different scaling but I still think DD will be the way to go for more bleeds and vul from more interrupts.
Forum bug fix…
I think it will work with blurred frenzy.
For solo GS camping builds, sure. But 3 points in discipline has been a staple for warrior builds for a long time. 33% chance on crit for vulnerability vs 14 stack spike… and just the utility of having a short CD on weapon swap. I’m sure warriors will run both depending on group comps or enemies that require more dodging/blocks. Either way, adrenaline is still stupid easy for them to maintain.
Evasive mirror looks godlike compared to MR. With IP as baseline, grab chaos+ master of manipulation for bonus mirror on blink. Cancel cast the actual heal skill mirror to just troll them even more. You should never die to ranged projectiles after the change.
Just like a mesmer can use their heals offensively, so too can eles, engineers (blasts) or warriors (max adrenaline) from healing surge. Signet of fury is also insta max adrenaline (20% dps boost is better than 180 precision). Weapon swap is 5 adrenaline and the meta build goes GS/axe+mace for vulnerability stacks. With the new trait setup, they are also easily getting burst mastery added in to make that rotation easier.
Healing Surge, Axe F1, Axe/mace 2/4, swap 100b, ww—> already at max adrenaline in 6 seconds. Proceed to basically do the standard gs+axe/mace dps rotation.
It really is that easy for a warrior to maintain that bonus.
For your PvE Sinister build, confusion and slow are at odds.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC_AW8Bmg~
Minor changes that make this more interrupt + pistol focused with less shatter spam. I wouldn’t worry about p.fury in a hybrid build because rampager can make up a bit more precision if needed and you also want to crit yourself because confusion on sword cleave (8 confusion on BF). F2 for 8 AOE confusion, 8 torment and then resetting your duelists to barrage again. Having mistrust vs trash mobs can mean 10 stack of aoe confusion if you time a single MoD really well. Pistol 5 gives 4 aoe confusion. Focus offhand for slower but aoe illusions condition dmg + another aoe interrupt.
It lacks might stacks though and I think chaos can really help with that.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC_AOkBmg~“Main hand pistol PS mesmer”
Basically do nothing but pistol 5 which recharges itself and #4. Interrupts give might and #4 shares it every time. MoD for a bonus.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC9AOkBJg~
I really hope interrupt traits work in PvE =/http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBWAJcBOQ~
My take on a more team support shatter build that still brings a zerker amy. Self heal on shatter. AOE blind, condi removal and 100% vigor uptime on shatters. Swap to power block for weakness/alternative damage source. Personally, I’ve always felt that the shatter mesmer today is too selfish when it comes to defensive support while most of the meta builds can support/peel for each other. Slow from chronomancer can be nice but thinking about how often a mesmer can shatter and how much scarier stuff like stacking burning will get, I think inspiration is going to be the better choice.Phantasm won’t be getting fury from your party like you will.
For PvE, Condi has been traditionally for open world or solo. Even with the changes to condi stacking making it more “viable” I doubt groups will want a condi mesmer. Reflects will still probably be based off of precision, ferocity and dmg multipliers which condi builds won’t have. So what group fury do you speak of?
EDIT: Forgot to mention another thing. Even in groups, going full rampager +DD vs full sinister +p.Fury:
Rampagers has 321 less condi dmg but 15% higher crit base (5% lower after p.Fury) chance BUT 33% chance of duelists to stack 2 more bleeds on crit. Basically bleeds are ~10% weaker but you get 56% more of them with DD.
(edited by DuckDuckBOOM.4097)
If mob still get CC’d when breakbar is active, then whats the point of breakbar? Isn’t it supposed to act like defiant and absorb the CC effect?
On the other hand, if mob cannot be CC’d when breakbar is active, then its not possible to interrupt.From what I understand, it reduces the bar only.
Then once the bar is depleted – by various forms of CC – then CC will take hold if used after that.I played around with on-interrupt traits in Stronghold against heroes and it only reduces the bar without proccing and CCing, but if you manage to deplete the bar when the hero uses a skill it actually interrupts and procs your traits (of course as it is an interrupt). Very situational and hard to achieve.
This was different than what I saw in the PvE beta. CC reduced the breakbar but my CC never actually happened to the enemy. Once the bar was reduced to zero, it was a generic 5 second stun. This didn’t proc any of my interrupt traits. After this the bar turned orange/steel and began slowly filling up. They were immune to any CC during this.
If what you’re saying is true… I really hope they fixed it but I didn’t get a chance to test interrupts against a lord in a solo environment ^^.
But did you check to see if the bar reduced to zero while they were casting a skill? Our traits are only on interrupt not on stun.
I was checking in solo situations and vs non-break bar enemies as well. I don’t think my timing is the issue. They may have changed it since then
For your PvE Sinister build, confusion and slow are at odds.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC_AW8Bmg~
Minor changes that make this more interrupt + pistol focused with less shatter spam. I wouldn’t worry about p.fury in a hybrid build because rampager can make up a bit more precision if needed and you also want to crit yourself because confusion on sword cleave (8 confusion on BF). F2 for 8 AOE confusion, 8 torment and then resetting your duelists to barrage again. Having mistrust vs trash mobs can mean 10 stack of aoe confusion if you time a single MoD really well. Pistol 5 gives 4 aoe confusion. Focus offhand for slower but aoe illusions condition dmg + another aoe interrupt.
It lacks might stacks though and I think chaos can really help with that.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC_AOkBmg~
“Main hand pistol PS mesmer”
Basically do nothing but pistol 5 which recharges itself and #4. Interrupts give might and #4 shares it every time. MoD for a bonus.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC9AOkBJg~
I really hope interrupt traits work in PvE =/
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMBWAJcBOQ~
My take on a more team support shatter build that still brings a zerker amy. Self heal on shatter. AOE blind, condi removal and 100% vigor uptime on shatters. Swap to power block for weakness/alternative damage source. Personally, I’ve always felt that the shatter mesmer today is too selfish when it comes to defensive support while most of the meta builds can support/peel for each other. Slow from chronomancer can be nice but thinking about how often a mesmer can shatter and how much scarier stuff like stacking burning will get, I think inspiration is going to be the better choice.
If mob still get CC’d when breakbar is active, then whats the point of breakbar? Isn’t it supposed to act like defiant and absorb the CC effect?
On the other hand, if mob cannot be CC’d when breakbar is active, then its not possible to interrupt.From what I understand, it reduces the bar only.
Then once the bar is depleted – by various forms of CC – then CC will take hold if used after that.I played around with on-interrupt traits in Stronghold against heroes and it only reduces the bar without proccing and CCing, but if you manage to deplete the bar when the hero uses a skill it actually interrupts and procs your traits (of course as it is an interrupt). Very situational and hard to achieve.
This was different than what I saw in the PvE beta. CC reduced the breakbar but my CC never actually happened to the enemy. Once the bar was reduced to zero, it was a generic 5 second stun. This didn’t proc any of my interrupt traits. After this the bar turned orange/steel and began slowly filling up. They were immune to any CC during this.
If what you’re saying is true… I really hope they fixed it but I didn’t get a chance to test interrupts against a lord in a solo environment ^^.
From the information I gather from this thread, it looks like the new breakbar mechanic renders our interrupt traits useless. I mean:
When breakbar is active, you can’t cc —> you can’t interrupt.
When breakbar is inactive (broken), enemies not doing anything --> you can’t interrupt.So… am I reading this right?
You can CC when the breakbar is active but it won’t proc interrupt traits. You need to CC (or blind) to bring the break bar down.
I’m still tempted to have a pistol with sigil of paralyzation, rune of the mesmer and confounding suggestions. 30% longer stun, daze —> stun and 58% longer daze duration.
A 1 second daze would be worth 2.88 second of break bar reduction and pistol 5 would be 2.6 seconds. So mesmers might still have the role of an “interrupter” in a group by being able to solo break bars but interrupt traits won’t be worth it.
For the phantasm vs not phantasms: I’m basing it off of how precision vs crit chance or power vs % increases work. Ferocity is a base stat that affects phantasms. However, I don’t think something that increase crit damage will affect phantasms. The wording on the trait mentions a % increase to damage so I’m skeptical of it affecting phantasms.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMC9AG8BJg~
Something like this with the new mender’s purity would make power return count as 2 mantra buff charges because it’s activating power cleanse as well. I think you guys are looking at this wrong. If you do “nothing” but spam mantra of pain, it’s only 33% of your time dedicated to channeling while you can still activate phantasms/other skills while discharging. That alone maintains 4 stacks. I just need 1 extra mantra discharged every 8 seconds. I don’t need to spam MoD for that. Just 1 interrupt discharge every 8 seconds is reasonable. 3 charges would last me 24 seconds. Regardless of if the heal gives 1 or 2 charges, discharging it once every 8 seconds also lasts 24 seconds. You could easily maintain 5 stacks while charging MoR or MoD once every 24 seconds. If you want to frontload it, hit MoD, MoR and MoP at the same time for 4 instant stacks. 1 second later, it’s 5. You can still spam all the weapon skills while discharging and most fights are done before you even need to recharge MoP.
Turning MoP into an auto attack (ctrl right click) makes it a lot less tedious to use. If you time interrupts properly, this can actually make MoP cycle in 4.8 seconds (1.8 charge3 sec discharge). 3/4.8 = .625 that you need to solo maintain 5 stacks with MoP.
As I mentioned above, MoP and MoD+ Halting strike hits 5 enemies while auto attacks hit 1 or 3. With the HoT beta and the groups of mobs I ran into, that’s a big deal. Could also be used as a WvW backline that basically gives aoe healing that is 20% stronger than healing signet with just MoP.
The biggest issue I have with this trait buff is that it’s so PvE dungeon focused. The ferocity really benefits critical hits on reflect damage and builds that have banner of D+ fury+ assassins/berserker to make use of the buff 100% of the time. Making the buff last 10-12 seconds and give % increase to power instead of ferocity would help a lot and I don’t think it would break PvP. Alternatively, make it so that each mantra discharge refreshes the duration for the entire stack. So 1 mantra discharge every 8 seconds is enough to keep 5 stacks that are built up.
Most of the issues stem from the large disparity between the efficiency of damage stats and the efficiency of defensive stats.
False. No one has been able to prove this assertion. Have at it, if you want to hang arguments on the premise. Remember, though, that efficiency is different if what the stats do is different, so you cannot use kill time as your measure.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/249pc7/effective_power_and_effective_health_of_all/
No one can prove it because it’s not true. Don’t expect them to try and math >.<
The best way to solve this, in my opinion, is to make enemies hit for less damage, but more often. Keep the big, telegraphed attacks that require actively avoiding, but make basic damage come in a steady stream that becomes harder to avoid, increasing the value of Toughness/Vitality/Regen/etc. Make using Zerker gear an active choice according to your skills as a player.
Protection + Weakness + Chill armor becoming more easily accessible = ~68% damage reduction which is stronger than going full toughness. Look at the above link, your “solution” to the “problem” won’t work. It’ll make a zerker players swap utilities/weapons but no decent player is going to go for toughness/vit when they can grab other stuff instead. I can blast water fields in zerker gear too to easily heal up any damage that goes through. If you think the “zerker elitist” are bad now… it’ll only get worst if this happens.
I’m a bit confused about the wording of this trait.
http://i.imgur.com/fIH0J9L.jpg
Description says “stacking ferocity bonus” but the bottom half says 4% damage. A boost in ferocity would affect phantasm damage but a boost in crit damage would not affect phantasms. Basically, it’s like precision vs fury. 4% boost to ferocity seems oddly worded to me because the % makes it sound like +4% crit damage but that’s not what it’s saying. I can see it as 3 potential scenarios.
PvE Zerker+Scholar # without banner:
1,145 ferocity —> 226.33% crit damage
1) 20% increase to 1,145: 1,145*.2/15 = +15% crit damage or 241.33%
2) 20% added to 226.33% crit dmg = 246.33%
3) 20% increase to 226.33% = 271.6%
With fury and banner of D, 100% crit chance is easy to hit for PvE mesmers so they become 1) 6% bonus to mesmer and phantasms, 2) 8% bonus to just the mesmer or 3) 20% bonus to just the mesmer. However, all of this requires only Mantra of Pain which opens up a lot of options to bring without losing out on DPS. Furthermore, add the heal in there to spike it faster; alternative to using SotE to recharge phantasms.
While it might seem odd to some people to just spam MoP, the damage is actually pretty good and it hits 5 targets unlike most mesmer skills that hit 1-3 targets. Since most HoT content looks like it’s going to be groups of enemies that are resilient to being pulled together/stacking rather than single target meat bags, MoP auto attack = new meta! MoD+halting strike/furious interruption (If they fix interrupt traits =/) as a bonus to charge MoP faster.
The problem I have with this how these numbers work in PvP. 193% crit damage with a zerker amulet and 50% crit chance makes this a lot weaker. Spamming mantras isn’t great unless you are maybe running some kind of bunker that has high armor and heals…. but then what’s the point of ferocity bonus? Valkyrie amulet could almost work but then it would require something else to boost crit chance. Maybe some weird valkyrie & sigil of intelligence bunker/dps hybrid + phantasmal fury but then it needs to be option #1 which is a total of 3% boos at max stats… this is going to be a PvE only trait.
As for speedy kits, just because a trait is always picked does not mean it should be made baseline. Having permanent swiftness for no investment at all would just be too strong. I do agree that pairing it with kit refinement was stupid, that trait is terrible in every single way, and only served to Nerf speedy kits by making it a major trait.
I agree with something always being picked doesn’t mean baseline. I disagree with the “nerf.” It’s 6 or nothing in trait lines now and you can only pick one from each tier. Would you rather have SD and SK be in the same tier and prevent you from running both? I would hate this personally.
With that in mind, I really hope they make it proc only when in combat because I can easily see it being really annoying if this keeps putting you in combat when you just want to move faster. If they change this, it actually adds a lot of utility. If not, it’s just a nerf to engineers wanting to run around the PvE maps.
PvP SD Engi, swap to medkit or toolkit for bursts of speed or magnetic aura is a nice buff and a reason to bring medkit over HT.
PvE, poke with rifle then bomb kit to pull them it. Very nice especially with the new short fuse trait as it adds utility such as mesmer focus or guardian GS pulls.
What does the new mortar kit get?
The rest are basically niche/boring but it’s not that terrible of a trait when tacked on to something… unless again, it procs OOC and then messes everything up.
Harpy Fractal: Mid point golem warden got nerfed. Need earth ele/bear tank for it now.
TA Spider boss: Projectiles are now unblockable although poison still does increase your damage in general.
Arah alphard and mage crusher cannot be 100% shut down anymore with reflects as they have been changed/given unblockable projectiles. Reflects are still very useful.
The archdiviner is a matter of agro and being a two part attack. The first part is a melee attack that seems to have super long range and only hits the person that has aggro. The second part is the projectiles. I have never been hit by the first part when he is not facing me and always dodge and see the evade when he is facing me.
…
I’m impressed by your selective reading capabilities. #shade
No, I don’t use interrupt traits in PvE right now. Because they don’t work. But they should work. The reduction in traits does matter and you shouldn’t put it off as some hypothetical babbling – especially not so since it does take the known list of reworked traits into account.
DuckDuckBOOM has gone into detail on how the new defiance bar will harm us. To be fair, not only us but probably also other classes with related traits (e.g. at least Warriors). However, Mesmers are especially affected because of the high amount of interrupt traits we got. Ontop of that we got plenty of GM shatter traits which are also rather supbar in PvE content. Go figure.
If you don’t feel like wrapping your head around some sound arguments and concerns that’s your choice. But having a high percentage of traits not working in PvE is a major issue and it won’t change just because you feel I didn’t make a valid point. I’m not concerned about existing builds. I’m conerned about the general performance of Mesmers and build diversity.
Do you use absolute build diversity? Or build diversity of viable and maybe even optimal builds? What I’m trying to say is that it for the most part people weren’t using the traits that were removed, diversity is maintained. Either way I would like a concrete example.
1) Most traits aren’t being removed, they have been merged with older traits or added as baseline. 2) There are many “viable but not optimal builds” that people currently use. Some of these have interrupt traits. As an example, I run MoD and Halting strike in an otherwise meta build for trash mobs. Swap back to shorter CD on signets for bosses. Even against, bosses, you can proc interrupt traits if you really push for it although it wont be optimal. I’m sure there are some people that don’t have a PS warrior or ele in their group to stack might and choose to bring bountiful interruption+signet of inspiration. It’s not meta but for some pug groups, it can be optimal given the group conditions. Now these traits WILL NOT WORK AT ALL with the current implementation of the break bar. This is decreasing build diversity. It’s not that builds become “suboptimal but viable,” these traits will literally be NOT VIABLE for many enemies in the game.
As much as people complain about thieves “hard” countering mesmers, our traits still work against them and it require some semblance of skill from the thief; it’s just usually a weak matchup. A defiant bar will become a hard counter to any interrupt trait. Not a 20% chance of winning but a rock smashes scissors 100% of the time. This isn’t good for PvP balance either.
Because there is a) a higher number of traits plus b) a lower percentage of interrupt traits and c) the option to pick traits of lower tiers?
Domination and Duelling would have rather unappealling option on certain tiers if interrupt traits were not working in PvE. I mean… what are you going to pick in those lines? Shatter traits? Yey.
Arent you under the impression that the defiance bar will be added to creatures in HoT that would not have the defiant buff if they were in Gw2 now? I don’t see how that makes any sense. Interrupts don’t work on bosses now and they wont in HoT. I don’t see the change.
Briefly mentioned it before but I’ll try to explain a bit more. The breakbar is all over the place.
There are “trash” hammer and archer mordrem guys. The archers don’t have a breakbar but they do evade. The trash hammer guys have the “guarded” break bar that only flashes blue when they do a big smash attack. These are the generic mobs you fight in the personal story and parts of the open world. No champ, elite, vet status, just normal trash guys with half of them having break bars.
There were mushroom caves with the little guys that died pretty fast. If you killed too many little guys without break bars, a few vet/elite guys would spawn and these did have unguarded break bars.
During events that got really zergy, I noticed quit a few hylek with both guarded and unguarded breakbars on enemies that ranged from “vet to champ difficulty.”
Basically these break bars are a lot more common than the current defiant. Even with the current defiant, you technically can interrupt them. It’s just that only 1 in 3-5 interrupts work. Now, none of them will ever work given the current implementation of the break bar.
What really sucks is that the trash guys die so fast it doesn’t matter. Even with celestial/knights gear, my engi was blowing them up relatively fast. With zerker most trash mobs are going to explode. So what that leaves is the “difficult” fights were sustain and interrupts start to matter. A build I was looking at was dom, duel, chaos. This would have had 2-3 interrupt grandmaster traits as well as furious interruption to fuel my mantra charging for more interrupts. If I don’t get quickness often, mantras go back to being crap channeling in combat. What is the point of the new duelist discipline recharging my pistol skills with interrupts vs trash mobs? I need that recharge vs a boss with aoe that is constantly cleaving my phantasms. Might stacking really only matters vs tough guys too but if I cant interrupt = no might from CI. What is the point of increasing the recharge of an ability by 10 seconds if the enemy dies in 2?
For PvP balance: There is one elite spec that is getting some form of break bar. This will be a hard counter to 3.25 grandmaster traits and many major/minor traits as well. This is unacceptable. If someone traits for a break bar, they should be resilient to stuns but the mesmer should still get something back for wanting to trait like a gw1 mesmer.
TLDR The new break bar is much more common now and interrupt traits matter more for enemies that would have a break bar than trash mobs (even some of these have break bars) As Xaylin mentioned, interrupt traits will be major options for the mesmer as other traits get removed and if these don’t work on the enemies you need them to work on, that drastically reduces build options/viability.
I think there is a slight difference in our definitions that make it hard to implement.
The engineer trait is on knockback. An ele trait (lightning rod) is on CC. Mesmer traits are specifically on interrupts. (Also 1 warrior and ranger trait) This makes timing an important component. This isn’t “wanted to see how it works on Engi.” These are mechanically different things where the engineer/ele don’t require timing but most mesmer traits do. It’s why the domination minor trait still works for mesmers but the rest don’t.
The easy fix would be to make all mesmer traits on CC instead of interrupt but that would make things brain-dead easy and ruin PvP balance. The blue bar alone doesn’t guarantee the enemy is doing anything (see guarded vs unguarded above). Furthermore, breaking the bar won’t count for an interrupt because the stun seems to be self inflicted so it won’t proc mesmer traits. A few ways to implement better changes;
1) Any time a CC reduces the blue bar and the enemy is currently using a skill, this should count as an interrupt for traits.
2) Any time a CC is used while an enemy is using a skill (regardless of break bar status) this counts as an interrupt.
“Congrats and welcome to the Beta! You will spend most of the time face-down in the dirt waiting for your friends to revive you, because the closest uncontested WP is on the other side of the map, until they die as well, at which point you will exit the Beta event in disgust.”
Celestial weapons and armor with dolyak runes and knight’s accessories… How?
Unyielding Anguish is going to make open world or random pugs really miserable with them teleporting mobs around everywhere randomly.
Their teleport location can be “aimed”, but random Revenants aren’t going to do that. They’re going to just displace big piles of mobs away out of everyone’s AoE. It’s like the ranger longbow knockback but a million times worse.
This was the main thing I wanted to say. Was frustrating especially with the lag. Like mobs would be forced to teleport out, leash teleport back to their first spot which then forced a teleport out again.
I found something I loathe more than bearbow longbow #4 spammers: the mallyx skill that keeps teleporting mobs out of the circle. So annoying especially with the lag that results in enemies leashing/teleporting back into the circle only to be moved out again.
(1) Keep in mind that during yesterday’s beta, we still had our old traits, not the new specializations … so your results may change in the future … “things are still in flux” :-p
In flux but I highly doubt that Anet is aware of how bad it is the for mesmer traits. Just because it’s a new flashy UI, doesn’t change how the traits fundamentally work. Changing the UI doesn’t change the break bar mechanic either. I don’t want to rely on a “maybe change in the future.” I want to get this out and hopefully a few voices behind it so that it will actually get looked at.
Since I was writing that at midnight my time while beta testing, I’ll try and clear up a bit of what I was saying:
There are two kinds of break bars:
Guarded: This has a steel bar stripe covering the blue bar. The blue bar is only revealed when the enemy is channeling key skills that can be interrupted. It did not seem to take much to interrupt.
Unguarded: This starts off as a blue bar and felt like it took a lot of CC to bring it down. I think part of this was scaling but you could think of it as a boss that starts with 5-10 defiant stacks. Once it was broken, it turned orange. The orange bar slowly filled up. I didn’t notice the blue bar filling up particularly fast after I had CC’d.
Both of these bars, when broken, seemed to give a generic stun for 5 seconds. When I tested on my engineer, the trait gives quickness on knockback. So rifle 4 and flamethrower 3 where what I tested with. The knockback never actually happened but the trait still gave me quickness. Likewise, I was testing with a 4/6/4/0/0 mesmer build; when I dazed, 5 vulnerability was applied (Dom Master Minor).
I still had, Illusion of vulnerability, halting strike, bountiful interruption and furious interruption traited though. None of these ever worked against an enemy with a break bar. It was late and I didn’t have much time to test it but I’m fairly certain I would have at least gotten one correctly timed interrupt. (Trash mobs were fine for me)
Whenever I broke the blue bar, I believe the generic 5 second stun is a stun that the mob applies to itself. The enemies seem to be immune to any form of CC that we can actually apply to them. With the trait rework, that’s going to be 3 useless domination traits. Mistrust and the new DD looked so awesome but those are going to be 2 useless build defining traits from Dueling. CI rework would have made mesmers self sufficient with might stacking but that isn’t happening against bosses. No more slow on interrupt for chronomancers either.
So the traits are a throw back to gw1 mesmers and trying to “bring interrupts back” but none of the traits actually work against enemies that you would want to use them against. The new breakbar is much more prevalent on the new enemies than the current defiant system which exacerbates this problem. This needs to be changed. I highly doubt they will change the “self inflicted” nature of the break bar because it would make holding the strongest CC to the end the best solution and they want an entire team to spike at the right time without worrying about that. Personally, I would be for having every CC on an exposed break bar proc interrupt traits. This would be akin to the really old defiance system: we used to be able to proc halting strike 3 times vs a boss with 2 defiance stacks if we had a 3 x F3. This was nerfed for some unkown reason. I really want to play an interrupt build again but without these traits… even flash bang was better at reducing the break bar than most CCs from the mesmer.
If enough mesmers weigh in, I think I’ll open up something in the main HOT subforum. This technically effects 1 ranger and 1 warrior trait too.
Disclaimer: Because they give you celesital stats, I decided to use an engi for the beta but
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Synaptic_Overload
This, I figured, was good enough to test interrupt traits and how it works with defiance.
Basically, even though I only reduce a portion of the defiant bar (blue), it still gave me quickness when I used knockback skills (the enemy was not knocked back). Even when the breakbar had been broken (orange) I could STILL get quickness when using a knockback on enemies. Already I’m like “amazed” at how well this is going. I then find a guarded breakbar (steel bars covering the blue) AND IT STILL FREAKING GAVE ME QUICKNESS!
This is crazy promising so far. Going to delete engi and try the mesmer in a bit.
Edit:
5 Vulnerability when I daze a guarded break bar guy but halting strike and bountiful interruption didn’t proc on the mordrem in the first story instance =/. Like even with a 2 illusion F3 and MoD at the same time when the final boss had a blue bar, it still didn’t proc any interrupt traits. There was a chance that the NPCs are spamming CC as well and catching the interrupt so I tried to find a mushroom (harder with nighttime events now and people aren’t zerging as much). Only managed to find 1 mushroom I could solo test this on. Even against the mushroom guys, same story. Turning the breakbar orange doesn’t even give me any interrupt trait benefit. A 3 clone F3 for a successful “interrupt” doesn’t give me anything.
So TLDR: Quickness on knockback still gives quickness even when the knockback never happens. Interrupt traits… mesmer get the kitten end of the stick it seems because now some enemies are straight up immune to these traits. At least with the old defiance system, it was only against champs. Now that the blue breakbar is on a lot of weaker enemies, CC traits are even less important. WTF
(edited by DuckDuckBOOM.4097)
Leaps are affected by slow and cripple (distance halfed), no melee skill that is not teleported at you will hit you ever. 10s cd becomes potentially 20s with slow, while your cds will be halved. Mesmers will be insanely powerful in HoT. Sword/shield and scepter/focus and you will kite like a boss.
Except the RS#2 was specifically stated to not be affected by movement impairing conditions. It can also be traited to corrupt boons on a really short CD now.
Furthermore, they have a trait that’s -33% to movement impairing conditions or -66% in RS. Combine that with runes of melandru or hoelbrak and they will pretty close to unstoppable in RS. Chaotic Interruption will be a minor blip on their radar while their charge attack will completely ignore it.
A few general things for this matchup: the reaper scales really well with the number of enemies there are for multiple traits/shouts that give greater bonuses/life force. Since mesmers will no longer have clone death traits, there is nothing holding the reaper back form cleaving everything. In fact from clones/illusions, there is a very decent chance that the reaper will actually get back more healing/life force than damage the illusions could output.
Personally going to be messing with a power reaper with blood magic (hurray for life siphon working in DS and again, healing the necro as it cleaves illusions down quickly) or a lingering dhummfire reaper because the reaper can definitely go condi with a very fast cleaving power/burning hybrid damage on RS#1 that will drain a mesmer fast. I don’t think it’s auto win for reaper but I actually think the matchup is going to favor the reaper.
I’m assuming this is for PvE?
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQC9AVsBqg~
With lingering curse capping at 100% (they did mention that they “might” remove the cap on the live stream), chilling nova will be 3x 6 second AOE chills on a 10 second CD. That alone is enough to keep aoe perma chill with no need for epidemic.
Scepter main with dagger/warhorn offhand. Dagger for the blind to chill and warhorn to help sustain life force in RS. RS#3 can also aoe chill from an aoe fear to start the combo. Warhorn cripple will means enemies will barely move or the new break bar system won’t even have bosses move from fear. If you don’t have enough blinds to make that trait worth it, blood is power, “suffer” DS auto will also work. Trait corruptions instead.
That + sinister gear and probably runes of aristocracy are going to be my PvE build. Not sure on the damage from chill as more life force from boons/faster dhumfire might be better.
Why focus? Warhorn seems way better with chilling force. Warhorn 5, will pulse 5 might per second before auto attacks are even factored in. Even if they add a 1 second ICD in chilling force, the timing would be perfect with locust swarm.
Also leap finisher! Fire aura for might whenever you get hit. Chaos Armor for random defensive boons. Combo with teammates ftw!
Focus 5 is a boon rip and chill on a low CD + focus 4 which bounces for very high LF on top of hitting, gaining 2% more LF per hit, it also gives you Regen which gives 1% LF on inward-bounces. They both also have much shorter cooldowns, so more room for error.
I guess I prefer the pulsing cripple attack to cover chill and might from that as well. Less room for error? Locust swarm can’t be stripped and has high uptime + swiftness. I don’t get the less room for error.
Boon rip is nice but I guess I was thinking the much shorter CD and aoe ability of the new DS#2 would be better suited at boon ripping for PvP when traited. PvE wise, it’s seemed an obvious choice.
I’m personally really into condi scythe which no one else seems to be thinking too much about.
Lingering curse+warhorn+dhummfire scythe. Curses, SR, Reaper.
For power builds though, I would actually think dagger. Blood, SR, Reaper and a bit more of a bruiser/valkery build with Death perception to guarantee crits for PvP or Spite, SR, Reaper for PvE. Maybe replace Spite or SR with blood if vampiric aura is good enough.
Waiting for stab,block or evade,a non must be slow because of movies leap but as always the graphics are on point. Sooo…do my Lifeblast in Shroud Knight bounces or something…
Edit : Oh shoot do we get baseline increase of toughness during those slow beautiful attacks or do we have to dodge cancel as always and DK is enough??
The DS scythe auto looks significantly faster than the current DS auto, cleaves 3-5 targets and much stronger with life force generation while in DS. 15% reduced damage from chilled foes. Stability on DS#3….
Did we watch the same live stream/notes…
New minion that is meant to die quickly and gives life force when it dies.
Why focus? Warhorn seems way better with chilling force. Warhorn 5, will pulse 5 might per second before auto attacks are even factored in. Even if they add a 1 second ICD in chilling force, the timing would be perfect with locust swarm.
Also leap finisher! Fire aura for might whenever you get hit. Chaos Armor for random defensive boons. Combo with teammates ftw!
…
I’m not questioning the strength of the traits im questioning the shouts. only 1 shout benefits from reaper’s boon, and 20% life force from 5 targets is garbage compared to a spectral. In pvp you will almost never encounter a 1v 5 (5v5 are even more rare) suituation that you’ll survive especially not with a necromancer.
I’m saying a few things though: insta shouts would get out of hand with the mechanics currently given to the shouts and how the life force generation works.
I also don’t think shouts are as weak as most ppl say there are. I won’t use 5 shouts in all reaper builds but I will add a few here and there as flavor/tools. If the elite becomes stability instead of resistance, a few stacks of stability per enemy hit will also benefit from the trait. If “Rise” gives minions that give LF when they die, this is another shout that will scale well with group fights and life force generation. You can’t really dissociate reaper traits from reaper utilities, they are a connected package that needs to be balanced as such.
Unlike spectrals armor that requires you to get hit, or spectral graps that can easily miss and is single target, it’s much more likely that an AOE shout will hit a few enemies. There is also no reason I can’t use YAAW and spectral armor.
You don’t need 5 players, just 5 enemies. A mesmer would be prime target for counting as 4 enemies. Rangers as 2 or other MM necros kitten . Turrets etc if anyone runs those.
Let’s compare the shout heal to CC.
5.3k heal every 25 seconds vs 4k heal every 20-13 seconds. Base is 212 per second for CC or 200-307 per second for “YSIM.” 700 health per extra condition or 250 health and 4% life force per enemy hit. Cast time CC: 1.25 second, YSIM .75 seconds. And people are complaining about how shouts can be interrupted?
Overall, I think shouts can be really strong life force generation tools that scale up well as fights get larger. This is something that necros are considered poor at dealing with. The only changes I would recommend is add resistance to Suffer for each enemy hit and give Chilled to the bone 3 stacks of stability per enemy hit. Rise gives minions that give LF when they die. I would sometimes run a full shout build if this happened.
The grand master doesnt heal you if you use shouts, it only gives you LF. The heals only ocurr while in RS so that leaves the master trait of hitting chilled targets, might on lifeblast, regen when hit under 90%, fury on death shroud etc. no utility.
So a shout that gives you life force and scales up the more enemies it hits isn’t utility? You’re all weaklings will be a stun break that also give’s 4-20% life force refill with blighter’s boon. The heal will do the same. Being able to quickly have 40% life force in group fights seems pretty strong to me.
If it was insta cast and you had something like unholy sanctuary to bypass the CD on DS then it would start to hit broken levels of OP:
Hit 5 targets for a 15-20 second CD on the heal and “YaaW” which gives 40% life force. Since they can also do damage and crit while being instant, you can do other stuff while shouting to easily hit 50% life force or more in 2 seconds. A group trains you but whatever, 5.5k heal on a 15 second CD and US forces you into DS regardless of CD. 50% life force to last about 15 seconds in a bunkerish/bruiser build. Scythe DS auto has life force generation built into it. If you don’t have US and go blood instead, you’re life steals now heal in DS AND from what I can tell, blighter boon doesn’t require the boon to come from you. Shout warrior, ele, guard etc can now easily heal you while you are in DS on top of the might etc from your own auto attacks etc in DS. This can quickly become invincible with no counterplay because the insta heal/LF on shouts and auto proc on DS via US. Add spectral armor and last grasp in there and yeah…. too OP. This is why I think the cast time has to be there to add some counterplay. Otherwise, the % gain needs to be nerfed/# of boons decreased.
So those two shouts seem strong to me. I don’t play MM necro but “Rise” was initially interesting in a similar level when thinking from an engi perspective of detonate all minions for better pay off. My reasoning was that 12% life force per minion that dies means you spam 5 minions in larger fights = 60% life force from 1 skill as enemies try to cleave you down. This is another great way to scale defenses in team fights. However, after testing in game, that doesn’t work. Since Anet is asking for feedback on this, maybe ask for a minion that gives life force when it dies? And for people that do play minion builds/having more corpse explosions of stacking poison fields seems pretty strong; also this skill won’t go on CD once the minions die. It starts the CD immediatly because there is no secondary active. So it has that bonus compared to normal minion skills.
Having unblockable attacks is just nice although niche. Converting boons is great as well.
I have to say I find it a bit ironic that people were complaining about the data mined Jade wind elite that is a 2 second AOE stun being op but add great damage, chill, resistance or stability and necro to the mix, and suddenly it’s weak because necro >.<
Suffer would do well to transfer all conditions to all enemies instead of sharing 1 of each. I also wonder how this will work with runes of trooper. Does that first clear condi then transfer extra or the other way around?
Keep in mind that you don’t have to use the GS. I’ll probably go Reaper with Dagger/warhorn or scepter for power or condi. Trait 15% faster attack speed on scything and it already looks like a faster attack speed than the normal DS auto.
Lingering Curse, Dhummfire +Scythe ftw. It looks like it attacks 2x to 3x faster than the current life blast which means it might be able to maintain ~6-9 stacks of burning with the scythe cleave. Reapers onslaught could increase that attack speed for more burning or deathly chill for a “frostfire” condi dmg. Sinister in PvE or Dire/Rabid/Carrion combo in WvW/PvP would still have ~100% crit chance and bleed on crits. Maybe even a celestial burning vampire.
I can kind of understand why the trait rework doesn’t have Renewing Blast anywhere but I wish it was still there. A cleaving scythe vampire that starts to pump out 700 health team heals on DS auto that is now sped up o-O.
Edit: Oh and if life steal works through DS to heal now, does whirl finishers in dark fields also count with Reaper DS#4?
Discomancer + the Moot.
new cc forces ppl to /dance
Reaper and Dragon Hunter get access to 5 new weapon skills in addition to multiple new profession skills. Traits and utilities are nice things, but it’s your weapon skills and profession skills that provide the necessarily feedback in combat. Mesmer getting just 2 new weapon skills and one new shatter is disappointing comparatively, especially as to use shield you have to basically rely on sword or the horrid awkwardness of sceptre for your main-hand.
I’m really looking forward to Dragon Hunter personally.
Yep, I’m not really seeing where this ‘just as good’ is coming from.
Just as good doesn’t mean just as fun/new car feel. F5 is going to be really strong when used well but we’re mostly duplicating all of our old abilities. Chronophantasma is “strong” but giving us more of the same phantasms. It might not be as hype inducing but it seems “fair” to me.
They say that reaper will have longer cast time with larger effect -> INTERRUPT!!
But they will have Defiance bar =P
Where was that mentioned?
I was sorta guessing this as well since “someone” is getting a defiance bar and necro seemed like a good candidate for a GM trait in reaper form. That defiant will even bypass stability stripping via shatters. Also, shouts are still going to be insta cast most likely and maybe have interrupts/cc on those instant attacks as well. Might not be so easy to interrupt them if they get to us first.
Yep its broke, f5 timewarp keeps quickness ticking for 20 seconds allowing everything else you do that gives a few seconds of quickness to start stacking. Add another mesmer who also does an f5 timewarp and by the end of 40 seconds of quickness you can pass 20 seconds of quickness and he will pass back that 20 plus his own amount add in some more skills and some alacrity and you might be able to out last the cooldown of timewarp!
Nope.
Since timewarp pulses 1 second of quickness per second, double timewarp will be 2 seconds per second and signet of inspiration… it feels so meh. 20 seconds base or 24 with longer glamours then you share all of 2 more seconds =/.
That’s also assuming double timewarp will actually stack. It’s possible that you will only be able to share 1 second from time warp (+ boon duration).
1 more thing that was not mentioned that will hugely impact mesmer DPS
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirl_finisher
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Projectile_finisher
p.Duelist and p.Warden for the win!
I think I “figured it out.”
If each reborn phantasm counts as summoning a phantasm and procs illusionary inspirtation, then… Offhand phantasm, Shield 4, deja vu, Shield 5 (interrupt and quickness), shatter —> proc II 3 times.
So that’s 3 seconds to your group with shield 5. 6 seconds on you if you time it right. Shatter then gives your team another 18 seconds because each chronophantasm summon gives 6 seconds each. 21 seconds for the group on a 30 second CD. Relatively renewable. Well of Action for another 3 seconds every 30 seconds that can give your teammates 9 more from chrono-II.
http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=mesmer&traits=“Domination”,2,6,9-“Inspiration”,2,4,8-“Chronomancer”,2,6,8
Yeah, sharing quickness is going to be largely dependent on comboing Tides of Time, Continuum Shift, Well of Action and Signet of Inspiration. Might even need a lucky Furious Interrupt ontop of that (which would make the entire thing less than worth it)
I don’t think we really need Duelists Discipline. What I’m curious about is the new minor in Chaos that increases our outgoing boon duration by how many boons we have on us. If each boon is around 5% (any less would be pitiful) then there is a chance we can proc 4s or more of Quickness for every 3s application. With 65% boon duration we get that number jumped to about 5s, which would be much easier to share.
Still, at the moment it’s looking like it would take two Mesmer to reliably and constantly pump out Quickness.
I guess it’s more that I think that I need really long duration quickness (double timewarp, fights over in 20 seconds) or sustainable quickness to consider it not just a blip to teammates that can be detrimental. Signet of inspiration isn’t sustainable. This is why I think DD is “necessary.” II and FI need a consistent interrupt on a 5 second CD and phantasm summon on a 5 second CD to make sustainable team quickness “viable.” ~1 second is lost summoing the phantasm so ~2 seconds every 5 seconds is.. maybe possible if you can actually get an interrupt every 5 seconds. This requires chaos for boon duration but it already required 3 traitlines… =/
Been trying to theory craft how to get the most of it to teammates but it always comes up short. FI with Inspiring illusions is going to give ~2 seconds to allies. That will be a blip on peoples radars that could easily mess up peoples rotations and do more harm that good. =/ Furthermore, you need DD to make this work with constant pistol 4/5 spam and refresh to proc the 2 main traits. So it’s set as a Dom/Duel/Insp pistol build but lacks the F5+double timewarp.
Since timewarp pulses 1 second of quickness per second, double timewarp will be 2 seconds per second and signet of inspiration… it feels so meh. 20 seconds base or 24 with longer glamours then you share all of 2 more seconds =/. The shield could also work when you F5 it but it’s still kinda iffy to spread with SoI because it’s a lot of short duration’s that stack and the phantasm isn’t always going to summon fast depending on block timing.
So at the end of the day, there is double timewarp that is super straight forward or a selfish build. I’m looking at the Dom/Duel/Chaos Mantra setup. Chaos minors + bountiful interruption will give a decent boon duration boost. With the new harmonious mantras, you want to spam that MoP for a constant DPS and DPS boost. Being able to charge mantras in 1.8 seconds is going to be really nice. Then MoD lines up perfectly with FI. Spam sword auto.
MoD, Pistol 5 and F3 will make for 3 simultaneous interrupts. Another really big one that most people might not think about especially with mesmer is blind. Those are supposed to be 1/5th as effective compared to CC but will still reduce the break bar and we can trait for blind on shatter. IP+3 illusions = 4 interrupts!? F3 means 8!???!
Blind is not an interrupt. It might affect the break bar, but it absolutely won’t be treated as an interrupt. Additionally, blinding dissipation does 1 pbAoE blind per shatter, not per clone.
I’m not so sure of this and again will go back to how the break bar works/pve works. Those mordrem menders and a lot of small trash mobs can be “interrupted” by auto attack cleave/damage. Those aren’t “interrupts” in the technical sense but this procs halting strike/lighting rod. So IF reducing the break bar counts as an interrupt then blinds should count for an interrupt if it reduces the break bar.
However this also makes me wonder about power block. If it counts as a succesful interrupt then does it force the skill on CD before the bar is broken? Fair point about the blind shatter.
That’s really good to hear guang, but I’ve a question..
How often/likely is it for Mesmers to land interrupts on bosses on dungeons? In PvP an interrupt build is only good if you can manage to land an interrupt about every 8-10 seconds. What should a Mesmer speccing interrupt traits be on the lookout for?
Interrupts might be extremely difficult to land on bosses when they roll out the new break bar mechanic instead of defiance. I might be wrong, but that’s the sense of the thing that I got.
Maybe I’m just in upwards hype mode but I had the impression that it’ll actually be easy for mesmer to land lots of interrupts with the new break bar but it does come down to something simple. Does each CC that brings down the break bar count as an interrupt? or only the final hit? My gut didn’t even think about the latter until you guys mentioned it. I’m in the next round of beta so I’ll check it out but…
MoD, Pistol 5 and F3 will make for 3 simultaneous interrupts. Another really big one that most people might not think about especially with mesmer is blind. Those are supposed to be 1/5th as effective compared to CC but will still reduce the break bar and we can trait for blind on shatter. IP+3 illusions = 4 interrupts!? F3 means 8!???!
The reason I’m so hyped/hoping it goes this way is actually bountiful interruption and Illusionary inspiration. Basically it’ll be like GS warrior. It can be selfish and solo stack 25 might or can be specced to give a group 25 might. Not as easy as spamming warrior GS skills but when does might really matter now? Break bar is supposed to be 100% DPS boost and the mesmer is going to be riding that break bar hard!
So (Dom, Illusions, or Chrono)+ Duel, Chaos for selfish might. Dom, Duel, Chorno when others provide might. Duel, Chaos, Inspiration for the “PS warrior” mesmer. Or Dom, Duel, Inspiration for a hybrid reflect support DPS when the group has “medium stacks of might” that can be amplified.
I personally still thought Sword/Pistol+Focus (+shield) is still going to be optimal under most conditions. Blurred frenzy is going to be 8 confusion. Pistol/focus will stack a lot of bleeds/confusion single target/aoe. F5/Focus 5/Signet/Focus 5/F5/Focus 5 = 36 bleed/confusion in an aoe. Chronophantasm F1,2, or 3 to reset them and do it again! Shield would be for once max DPS illusions are up so why not give your group quickness and have an interrupt.
I kind of wish 3 casts was baseline.
Then Harmonious Mantras could instead automatically restore 1 charge every so many seconds (can make it different for each mantra – 20s per charge restored for MoRecovery, 40s for MoDistraction, 30s for MoResolve, 35s for MoC).
That would incentive passive play, and it’s not a good thing.
Not really because you’d be missing out on the restorative mantras and protected mantras bonuses if not using them up and recharging manually.
I dunno, perhaps another option is Harmonious mantras could reduce the cast time of charging to under 1 second?
(For the record I still wouldn’t use the trait – just wondering ways of making a useful trait and have 3 charges standard, instead of adding an extra charge on the trait).
Not sure if I’m recalling the quickness math correctly but 50% faster cast rate leads to 33% less time taken to channel right? So 2.75 second base with quickness is ~1.8 seconds. Now that the shield/furious interruption are relatively easy to grab, I’m not sure mantras need another trait to reduce the cast time further. I would welcome a base decrease to 2 seconds with quickness making it ~1.3 seconds though. A trait that decreases it to 1 second with quickness being able to reduce it to .66 seconds with a 2.6k heal after “channeling” would get out of hand real fast for PvP. Mantra of pain spam alone would be ~1k aoe healing per second with zero healing power.
But well, IF the trait rework is included, I’d like to know, how the trait “Duelist’s Discipline” is calculated. (If the 50% recharge reduction is calculated from the base cd or from the current cd left.) F.e. if the remaining cd of “Magic Bullet” is 10 seconds, and you are interrupting a target, is the skill fully recharged (-50% from base recharge), or if it only gets reduced by 50%, and therefore leaving “Magic Bullet” with 5 seconds cd.
I recently got a portal and this will be the first thing I test if the new traits are in the beta. Going by how CD reduction traits stack at the moment, it should be 100% but this is with the new mechanic that a lot of other weapons are getting. Granted those are “on hit” instead of “on interrupt” but have much smaller CD reductions like 2%. I’m also going to test if this requires interrupts with magic bullet or any interrupt at all. If it’s any interrupt, we basically get a “main hand pistol” with a halting strike “auto attack”.
Protected phantasms: Does this really have an ICD or is that a bug?
Illusionary Inspiration: Does it really have a 45 second cooldown?
I’ll check some of the other things on your list too but I’m fairly certain these are from showing the actually signet but won’t have the 45 sec CD. Also, Protected phantasms is from Triumphant Distortion that gives distortion to the mesmer on kill (10 sec ICD) and distortion to phantasms on summon (no ICD). The tooltip is probably only half fixed from the old trait.