Guild Wars 2

Treyu.9714:

the killshot mesmer link is for another class, was that a mistake? could you link the good one? thanks!

It’s a joke. He tells it every chance he gets.

I think the Sceptre may be worth using with no other changes in a Chronomancy build. If Shattering is good (and it looks like it will be in PvE with Alacrity and Chronophantasma) then so is Ether Clone.

That said we shouldn’t have to get an elite spec to make a PvE Mesmer work properly.

Zenith.7301:

Embolism.8106:

Zenith.7301:

No, confusion is horrendous and if anything the blurr should be first and unblockable second.

No mesmer will use well of precognition in pve with your suggestion as condition mesmers are worthless there and confusion in particular is one of the worst damaging conditions, right besides torment.

For direct damage you already have Well of Calamity, Well of Action and with my suggestion, Well of Recall. You’re not going to fit another utility Well in there so might as well leave something for condition builds.

I don’t think you get to tell me how much utility I should get to choose from.

There are plenty of mobs where the unblockable upfront will be used over other wells, for example the Volcanic Fractal fire shaman inside his shell will be easily rooted by something besides a signet warrior now that I can lay a well for my party to ignore the shell’s blocks.

Same goes for Captain Arshym in Urban fractal when he opens the fight with a block or the Oooze blocking in the Thaumanova Reactor fractal at 5% hp left when the little oozes are getting near.

So, thanks, but no thanks. Let’s keep the utility universal.

If you’re using Well of Precog for the unblockable, then surely you wouldn’t mind even if it does no damage at all: as with the current iteration. Adding Confusion doesn’t suddenly change it from “universal utility” to “condition-only crap”.

I should clarify that when I said “utility well” I meant a well in the Utility slots, not a well designed for utility. I assumed as you were talking about damage that your concern was not being able to fill your bar with direct damage wells.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Embolism.8106:

Ross Biddle.2367:

The fact is, Mesmers have solid avoidance and escape options.

Could use this same argument on why Mesmers don’t really need pulsing Vigour on Well of Eternity.

I don’t really see anyone dropping Dueling for Well of Eternity. Way I see it it’s an augment, not a replacement when it comes to Vigour, whereas the situation with condition cleansing can be quite different.

If you’ve ever played a mesmer build without either dueling, or dueling with no crit chance (thus no vigor) you’d understand. Especially if you were working DE into the build. If you’ve played for any length of time, you’d also remember the big difference that the vigor nerf made to mesmer.

Dodge roll is the single most powerful thing in the game

In fact my current build (both Chrono and non-Chrono) doesn’t use Dueling. As for how long I’ve played, not sure if you do but I do remember you since the beginning of this forum.

But that is exactly my point. Well of Eternity isn’t a viable alternative to Dueling by itself with Vigour. If it had condition cleansing however, it could (with, for example, Disenchanter and Chronophantasma) be a viable alternative to Inspiration.

Therefore a Well of Eternity that gives condition cleansing would increase build diversity more than one that gives Vigour.

(If you’re wondering how I get by with no Dueling and no Well of Eternity, the answer is blocking. So. Much. Blocking. Oh and it involves Inspiration.)

Ross Biddle.2367:

The fact is, Mesmers have solid avoidance and escape options.

Could use this same argument on why Mesmers don’t really need pulsing Vigour on Well of Eternity.

I don’t really see anyone dropping Dueling for Well of Eternity. Way I see it it’s an augment, not a replacement when it comes to Vigour, whereas the situation with condition cleansing can be quite different.

Ross Biddle.2367:

High vigor uptime is extremely important on Mesmer. Having a good source available anywhere means build viability without the need for dueling and high crit chance. When you actually do the dodging is somewhat beside the point so long as the vigor keeps ticking away.

Sure, but I think having ample condition cleansing that isn’t locked in Inspiration is also pretty important, given that Mesmers who don’t go Inspiration tend to be very, very lacking in this department.

Also remember this is a group effect, not just a self effect.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Any particular reason you believe it should be this way, beyond some desire for symmetry?

Because as we saw with old Gravity Well, pulsing a beneficial effect and ending with a negative one doesn’t work. Allies who are late in moving into the area won’t get the full benefit, and enemies can completely avoid the negative effect simply by not being in it when it ends.

The opposite means that you can always ensure enemies are debilitated, and allies can always get the full benefit by entering the well before it expires.

Zenith.7301:

No, confusion is horrendous and if anything the blurr should be first and unblockable second.

No mesmer will use well of precognition in pve with your suggestion as condition mesmers are worthless there and confusion in particular is one of the worst damaging conditions, right besides torment.

For direct damage you already have Well of Calamity, Well of Action and with my suggestion, Well of Recall. You’re not going to fit another utility Well in there so might as well leave something for condition builds.

I think that Wells with both positive and negative effects should always pulse negative effects to enemies and end with a positive effect to allies. We saw how the old Gravity Well didn’t work when it did the opposite, and I feel this is the problem with Well of Recall as well. So with that in mind…

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Well of Recall: Create a well that steals memories from foes, damaging and Chilling them for 2s every pulse. When it expires, it grants the stolen memories to allies, giving them Alacrity for 5s.
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The original end Chill was really weak for the same reason old Gravity Well’s end Float was weak. Sure it was a strong effect, but it is heavily telegraphed and trivial to avoid. The Alacrity given to allies was also negligible considering the CD on the well.

Reversing the Chill and the Alacrity IMO makes it far more workable: you immediately control enemies on cast, and allies who see the Well can enter it before it expires to gain the full effect.

It would also give Mesmers another tool for tagging groups of enemies (with the pulsing damage), which is something Mesmers do need.

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Well of Precognition: Create a well that overwhelms foes with images of the past, damaging and 2x Confusing them for 5s. When it expires, allies in the well can briefly see the future, gaining Blur and Unblockable attacks for 3s.
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So Well of Precog is meant to be a purely beneficial well, but I think it too can benefit from the dualistic approach. For starters Unblockable is a really niche effect, and the delayed Blur was nice but difficult to use. I also think we need a damaging Well geared towards condition builds, given that there is none at the moment.

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Well of Eternity: Create a well that rewinds time, cleansing a condition from allies every pulse. When it expires, the well heals all allies in the area.
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With the (good) change to All’s Well that Ends Well, we no longer have a condition cleansing option in Chronomancy. Not a real problem but I think it’s a shame. Also, Vigour on Well of Eternity seemed a bit weird: a boon that encourages dodging on a skill that wants you to stay in an area. No dualism here, just though I’d throw this in.

Well the stun triggered isn’t dependent on the duration of the daze so I expect not. I don’t think Sigil of Paralyzation stacks properly either, even though that was supposedly fixed (may be wrong, didn’t test extensively).

tetrodoxin.2134:

Embolism.8106:

…

I know you said baseline, but this sounds exactly like sth anet would do for our next elite spec

I know, it’s too elaborate… but I can’t help myself.

Most likely if Anet does decide to do this it would be something boring like each Shattered Phantasm giving you a few stacks of Might.

Seriously, whenever I see someone use the phrase “slap in the face” I know exactly what to expect. Never been disappointed.

We should be thankful that the phrase exists, it helps us pick out these… personalities… quickly and easily.

Phase Retreat is what it is. It’s not Blink and it shouldn’t be.

It’s an interesting idea, but it clashes with Chronomancy which emphasises Shattering quickly to get Alacrity so you can Shatter even more quickly. Sounds like something for another elite spec though.

I think for baseline stuff we should aim for simpler things, such as Phantasms just straight up having extra effects when Shattered.

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EDIT: Okay, so I did say simpler… but how about unique effects for each Phantasm when they’re Shattered. And I’m envisioning these being baseline, not locked behind yet another elite spec.

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Phantasmal Berserker: A greatsword briefly whirls in place where the Berserker Shattered, damaging and Crippling foes while acting as a Whirl finisher.

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Phantasmal Duelist: Ethereal bullets shoot out of the Shattered Duelist, bouncing between enemies and Confusing them. Every bullet acts as a Projectile finisher.

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Phantasmal Mage: The Mage explodes in a purple fireball when Shattered, Burning nearby enemies and acting as a Blast finisher (look! This is relevant to the topic!).

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Phantasmal Swordsman: A sword flies from the Shattered Swordsman towards the Mesmer, piercing through and damaging foes in the way. If the Mesmer catches the sword, Phantasmal Swordsman’s CD is reduced.

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Phantasmal Warden: A shield bubble is created where the Warden Shattered, absorbing projectiles for a brief period and counting as a Light field. Reflects if traited with Warden’s Feedback.

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Phantasmal Warlock: A chaotic totem remains briefly where the Warlock Shattered, increasing the duration of conditions on nearby foes.

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Phantasmal Disenchanter: A Null Field is briefly created where the Disenchanter Shattered, and can act as an Ethereal field.

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Phantasmal Defender: A shield briefly remains where the Defender Shattered, granting Protection to nearby allies.

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EDIT2: To prevent Chronophantasma from stacking too many of these effects, Phantasms will only proc them on their first Shatter.

PoM just gives a one-time bonus when a Phant expires from Shattering, it doesn’t scale with how long a Phant has been alive. And in any case I think this would backfire, Mesmers would be reluctant to Shatter if they have a Phantasm that isn’t built-up; and it would be a pain to convey this information on each individual Phant to the Mesmer in a non-confuzzling manner.

I think PoM is a nice simple step towards making Phants attractive to Shatter, but we need more: and no, a GM trait locked behind an Elite spec isn’kitten Phantasms are core to the Mesmer, as should Shatters; making them play nice should not be something you have to specialise in.

While we’re on the subject (I feel like this should be a new thread at this point), Phantasmal Haste. This trait sort of has this “built-up” problem that I mentioned in that if you Shatter too early or too late (if at all) the trait is wasted, and it clashes with Chronophantasma’s attack reset.

Daniel Handler.4816:

… people want to sleep.

Oh Lord, the amount of self-centered hypocrisy here is nauseating.

You want to sleep, but people at Anet should replace their blood with caffeine, right?

As said, Inspiration is pretty much the only way to get good cleansing in PvP. We do have a wealth of cleansing utilities but they’re all insufficient by themselves and Mesmers have fewer spare utilities than other professions.

We’ve asked for Phantasms to be more than just damage pets since pre-release. I doubt Anet’s going to change that, it’s essentially a redesign of the Mesmer.

Fay.2357:

Embolism.8106:

IMO Shield being useless in PvE is fine. Defensive weapons tend to be in the current DPS-or-bust meta (and IMO this is what needs fixing, not professions). Might as well complain about the Staff and the Torch.

The difference is that shield is one of the basic hallmarks of the elite specialization. In its current form, Anet is basically saying ‘yeah, have this new weapon, but don’t use it in any of the new content we’re giving you with the expansion, because it sucks’. See the problem?

Shields in general don’t see much use in PvE. IMO what needs changing is how content works, not how professions work so they all cater to the mindless DPS meta.

Yes you can talk about boosting the Shield’s support, but there’s always a line to tread as the Shield is plenty good in PvP already.

(Of course another alternative is to split PvP and PvE but it seems Anet doesn’t want that anymore.)

IMO Shield being useless in PvE is fine. Defensive weapons tend to be in the current DPS-or-bust meta (and IMO this is what needs fixing, not professions). Might as well complain about the Staff and the Torch.

Oh God that is adorable. Mobbed by Quaggans.

Underwater combat in general is in desperate need of an overhaul. I guess Anet will get to it when we get to the DSD.

At the moment Mesmer dungeon builds merely involve conjuring off-hand Phantasms (and only using MH Sword, as Sceptre can replace Phantasms with Clones) and providing reflect support. Zerg Mesmers again mostly provide support through reflects, group invisibility and portal bombing.

For stats you want Berserker or Assassin. Either works fine, the latter is slightly better for reflects.

PvE and WvW are pretty broad. By PvE do you mean “high end” content like dungeons, or just general stuff? By WvW, are you after a build to run with a zerg or a build for solo/small group roaming?

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

Anyone else notice that smashing a jar of harpy pheromones now only gives a few people hearts? Seems like everyone still gets harpies but you can’t make a zerg explode in hearts anymore.

Anet pls fix.

The reason I didn’t take Blink for this build is because it’s meant to be somewhat capable of holding points (hence also the lack of stealth). It doesn’t work quite as well compared to a Chrono build but it is capable of standing its ground, unlike most Mesmer builds (Bountiful’s Stability helps a lot!).

I think Signet of Midnight might be a better choice for a stunbreaker. It’s on the same CD and also Blinds enemies, and is a significant boost to offensive pressure when not used.

Lost Time and Danger Time synergise disgustingly well with the GS. If you aren’t using the GS I’d personally not go for those. Seize the Moment would give you on-demand Quickness (very, very handy for stomps and resses) and Improved Alacrity is just generally good.

On the other hand, you mention your reason for not taking Illusionary Reversion being because you have Deceptive Evasion. Have you considered using Illusionary Reversion + Chronophantasma and ditching DE instead? Chronophantasma to my mind isn’t primarily a Phant DPS trait, it’s a Shatter trait; and if you also go Illusions for Persistence of Memory (not to mention Illusionist’s Celerity) you can basically churn out Phantasms like they’re Clones.

The other benefit of Phantasma, seeing as you’re using Mental Defence, is you don’t lose Defender’s effect the moment you Shatter.

skcamow.3527:

The only thing your build seems to lack is a stun break but, nice overall!

I definitely feel the lack of Blink. As a rule I trust in Bountiful to keep disables off me, and use Diversion/Distortion if one does go through.

It may be possible to use Blink instead of Defender, but I just love having two sources of Defender: and yeah, with MS it doesn’t feel like it takes quite as forever to conjure.

After playing and falling in love with this Chronomancer build last BWE, I decided to try and recreate the feel of that build as a vanilla Mesmer: now that Riposte has been fixed, it seems like a good time to give it a go. Here’s the build.
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As you can see, it’s a Condi Shatter build with a twist: instead of DE, it relies on Persistence of Memory and the excellent clone generation of Sceptre-Sword to churn out shatter fodder.
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The key points of the build are:

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Persistence of Memory. With iDisenchanter, Mental Defence and Illusionist’s Celerity, you can shatter a lot of phantasms, which in turn keeps your phantasm CDs low (Mental Defence is also affected by Persistence!). This doesn’t just give you decent shatter cadence, it also means frequent packets of direct damage from Swordsman, boon stripping from Disenchanter, and (fleeting) damage reduction from Defender.

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Counter and Riposte: Counter is on a 6s CD, and together with Riposte allows you to mitigate hits at a respectable rate while conjuring clones and dealing damage. They’re also very convenient for proccing Mental Defence. If there are AoE skills lying around you can basically guarantee a proc by running into it while blocking.

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Malicious Sorcery: The attack speed bonus of MS really shines here as you have multiple skills with significant cast times. Try conjuring Disenchanter with and without MS: the difference is really appreciable.

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Bountiful Disillusionment: The cast times on this build, especially on Mantra of Recovery, are vulnerable to interrupts. That’s where this trait comes in. Maintain a good shatter cadence and you’ll be very resistant to all forms of disabling effects, all while providing your teammates with (admittedly rather lackluster) boons. Don’t forget that with Restorative Illusions, you’re also healing and shedding conditions every time you shatter!

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So theorycrafting is good and all, but how does this build fare in practice? Well, I’ve been playing it in Ranked for a bit and it feels pretty good: I don’t have trouble maintaining a healthy cadence of three-illusion shatters, although if too many phantasms die before you shatter it can leave you dry.
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Is it competitive? Probably not, Condi Shatter in general isn’t all that competitive to begin with. But it is fun, and a taste of what the Chronomancer (with Chronophantasma and alacrity) will bring.

Unless you really, really want AoE Diversion there is no reason to take Master of Fragmentation over Ineptitude or even Malicious Sorcery.

Making flowing stuff isn’t the hard part, the hard part is not having horrible clipping issues.

Legendaries will always be the best equipment. That said there’s no talk of increasing the level cap AFAIK so why are you worried?

Made a few changes to my ideas.

Hallucination now conjures two clones but has kitten ICD. Since interrupting depends on a lot on your opponent, just one clone seems really unreliable for illusion generation.

Overhauled my idea for Descent into Madness. I definitely understand not wanting to tie more things to Chaos Armour, in fact I originally wanted to tie it to Chaos Storm (which I’ve now gone back to). Reason I went with Chaos Armour was because we have a lot more access to it through Ethereal fields.

Reduced the number of boons required to trigger Discharge Enchantment to two. People primarily like Disenchanter for condition cleansing rather than boon stripping, so I figure it should be easier to conjure Disenchanter especially since it’s competing with Restorative Illusions.

The idea of boosting Shatter power with Master of Fragmentation is that you could get “full strength” Shatters with less illusions out. Obviously you can go beyond “full strength” by having three illusions, but a bit of versatility never hurts.

expandas.7051:

Since you mentioned portal, it occurred to me that it’s application of Super Speed and Resistance could also have a QoL fix to only apply the boons/buffs to those who actually go through the portal instead of its current iteration. That would make it more in-line with the design and purpose of the skill.

TE in general is poorly designed, it doesn’t work well with most Glamours. Feedback is cast on enemy, Portal pretty much only affects yourself and Veil you’ve mentioned. That’s why I think it should be overhauled instead of adding all these exceptions to individual skills (especially when skills that need these exceptions outnumber those that don’t).

I think both Winds of Chaos and Warlock are fine. Yeah Warlock is a bit weird being a Power phantasm but the Staff isn’t purely used as a condition weapon either.

Illusionary Leap should have 900 range and Riposte… first off the bug where it doesn’t conjure a Clone if you’re using a Sceptre should be fixed, and Counterblade should be better (as should Counterspell), but otherwise it’s okay.

Siren’s Call used to inflict Confusion and iWhaler Bleed, I think it should go back to that now that Confusion’s functionality is changed.

Critical Infusion is the same as Guardian’s Vigourous Precision. Eles do have it on 5s ICD but it’s also a major. IMO it’s fine as it is.

Restorative Illusions is really strong. Not all Inspiration traits help allies, and making such a strong survival trait also benefit allies is too much.

I’m honestly fine with MtD in its current state. IMO 2 stacks would be too much, seeing as Condi Shatter can use all Shatter skills to deal damage, as opposed to just Mind Wrack for Power builds.

Iason Evan.3806:

What was the thinking behind this? Ele will be the only class with access to only a single 2-handed weapon. 3 off-hand weapons with access to only 2 main hand weapons seems an odd choice.

See: Mesmer, 2 MH weapons with 5 OH. Ele doesn’t seem so odd now does it?

And the reason Ele has access to less weapons than other professions is because attunements.

I think both Temporal Enchanter and Veil need a substantial buff. As it is TE is mostly used only for extending Feedbacks and Time Warps, the Super Speed and Resistance are pretty but not something you can actively exploit most of the time (and even if you could it’s not that great). Only reason Veil isn’t completely ignored is because it doesn’t have a limit to how many people it can cloak.

IMO, Temporal Enchanter should give 5s Super Speed and 2s Resistance every time an ally enters or exits their area (think of the old Confusing Enchantments, and Portal would only work after Exeunt is cast) with an ICD of 5s per ally. It’s a GM trait, it should be strong.

As for Veil, it’s hard to buff it without making it overshadow MI, but it should give at least 3s stealth instead of just 2s.

MH Sword in Power PU is for Blur and Immobilise, neither of which the Sceptre offers. You do get more DPS out of the Sceptre but Power PU is all about bursts, and the GS does burst better.

MrKahwk.9524:

Embolism.8106:

Mesmers have little access to Burning, the most powerful condition at the moment; so I’m a bit puzzled as to where this is coming from. The two skills you complained about: Counter and Images: both have very obvious tells that makes them easy to avoid. A lot of popular builds with a modicum of condition cleansing can deal with a Condi Mesmer pretty effectively.

My guess is you play a build with very little cleansing, in which case any condition build will wipe the floor with you, not just Mesmers. I should also point out that unlike most condi builds, Mesmers rely on skills with obvious tells (Shatters, Counter, Images) and the effectiveness of their conditions depends on what they’re opponent is doing (running around, spamming skills), so losing to a Condi Mesmer is much more likely to be a L2P issue than to say a Burn Guard.

Sure if you can evade attacks from a stealthed mesmer, which after stealth you need a couple of seconds to focus him and plus he has stuns, dazes which can lock you down in order to hit those condis. I am not going to run several condi cleanses just because there’s one or two severly overpowered condi classes. I have to fight other classes too, and for them I need my usual utilities that synergize with my traits. The End.

Stealth is only going to cover for Images, Shatters aren’t any less obvious in stealth and I shouldn’t have to explain why Counter in stealth doesn’t work.

Condi Mesmers typically do not have a lot of stuns and interrupts (the majority will only have Diversion and Chaos Storm), that’s more of a Power Mesmer thing.

You don’t need a lot of condi cleansing to deal with a Mesmer, as I mentioned given the obvious tells of Mesmer condi application you can generally mitigate them the same way you’d deal with Power bursts.

If you’d like to post your build(s), perhaps we could give some pointers.

Ross Biddle.2367:

a 900 range Leap

How I wish this was the case. But no what we have is a 600 range fake-leap that’s buggy and unreliable.

Why make it any more complicated? Just allow conditions (and crits) to work on objects. I mean you could already poison Golems and bleed skeletons so I don’t see what the problem is.

Judging by his post history he doesn’t even play Mesmer. Just a troll thread guys, albeit one that doesn’t even make sense. Unsure if that’s intended or an insight into his thought processes.

Going into combat with Aegis (which has about 20% chance of proccing) is pretty good. But as Eremoo said, why? Are you losing anything because you’re gaining that second boon OOC?

Mesmers have little access to Burning, the most powerful condition at the moment; so I’m a bit puzzled as to where this is coming from. The two skills you complained about: Counter and Images: both have very obvious tells that makes them easy to avoid. A lot of popular builds with a modicum of condition cleansing can deal with a Condi Mesmer pretty effectively.

My guess is you play a build with very little cleansing, in which case any condition build will wipe the floor with you, not just Mesmers. I should also point out that unlike most condi builds, Mesmers rely on skills with obvious tells (Shatters, Counter, Images) and the effectiveness of their conditions depends on what they’re opponent is doing (running around, spamming skills), so losing to a Condi Mesmer is much more likely to be a L2P issue than to say a Burn Guard.

Sceptre and Malicious Sorcery are actually pretty good (in a Power build). The main problem is Sceptre Clones overwrite Phantasms, and the only reason MS is okay is because its competitors are worse (DPS-wise).

Overall I like how Mesmers have a “hybrid” weapon given our limited kitten nal of MHs, but Clones shouldn’t overwrite Phantasms period (I know that some Clones do unique things you might want but in practice they’re negligible) and Malicious needs a buff/baselining.

If Clones don’t overwrite Phantasms we might see Sceptre used with MH Sword instead of just doubling up on Sword in PvE (which is stupid and shouldn’t be something we’re encouraged to do).

EDIT: Really? [alternative word for buttocks]nal as in a cache of weapons is censored?

I think letting Counterblade (and Counterspell) keep the block damage (and Torment) is a great idea.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Smh… No one knows how to read.

Perhaps you’d like to elaborate further. It appears to me your concern is based on the Mesmer having too many sources of Distortion/Blur, we have explained why this is not the case in practice.

Realistically the only Distortion you’d see from a Mesmer is from the Shatter. You might occasionally see the Blur from MH Sword but as most Power Mesmers run Staff + GS it isn’t common.

Blurred Inscriptions is pretty much non-existent as 1. Mesmer signets aren’t that strong and don’t synergise with each other, 2. good Mesmers always take Blink and Portal and won’t take Signet of Ether, so you at most can squeeze two signets in, and 3. taking Blurred Inscriptions means not taking Shattered Concentration, which is far more valuable.

So no, you won’t find a Mesmer with invulnerability on as low a CD or as chainable as you’re imagining, and if you do they’d be severely lacking in other areas that you can exploit and punish.

The problem is the tonics for individual clothing pieces now also slap you with extra pieces you didn’t buy and can’t change. I used to mix the Casual Hoodie with Khaki Pants but now you can only wear one or the other mixed with truly hideous clothing pieces.