Guild Wars 2

Shattered Conditions is actually a very powerful trait, as I recall it removes one condition per Illusion Shattered. That’s three conditions and you have four Shatter skills.

The problem is Shatter builds cannot trait into Inspiration without making heavy sacrifices, so the build that actually works with those skills is excluded.

That used to be how Staff #1 worked: a single target hitscan attack that inflicts a random condition.

There are a few other points about the Sceptre that makes it undesirable.

1. The Ether Bolt chain does not progress until the previous projectile hits. This means thakittens DPS decreases with range.

2. Sceptre Clones have very low RoF. If you have any kind of Precision investment and take Sharper Images, this translates to a significant loss of DPS compared to any other MH/2H weapon.

3. At ranges where Ether Bolt DPS overtakes Spatial Surge, you may want to consider switching to the MH Sword instead for much higher DPS.

Personally, my hate for the Sceptre stems from the fact that it was originally intended to be a condition damage weapon, but is now just all over the place. And since I like condition damage this makes me bitter.

In a Power build the Sceptre is passable, but I don’t consider it worth it unless you want to rock two OH weapons, which you may well do in a Phantasm build.

Mind Stab used to be a single target Daze, but Anet removed it because it made the GS the go-to choice for Interrupt builds.

Of course, after Beta Interrupt builds died completely when people realised the GW2 Mesmer is nothing like the GW1 Mesmer.

I feel like misogyny in the GW universe is very forced. The parent cultures (Norn and Charr) do not have any misogyny and there is no indication it has ever existed in the past, yet the Sons of Svanir and the Flame Legion are like “Oh one member of our species who happened to be female defied us, it is time for MISOGYNY” which makes no sense unless misogyny was already present in the culture to begin with.

It’s like the Devs thought, hmmm, these evil factions aren’t evil enough, I KNOW LET’S MAKE THEM MISOGYNISTS.

Really, I don’t care much if you guys are fixing this or not (I’ve already resigned myself that the answer is no), just give us some indication that you know this exists. Given that this change isn’t even in the patch notes I wouldn’t be surprised if it is unintended and completely missed.

Will not let this slide.

juno.1840:

Embolism.8106:

If you stay in melee range then you’re essentially face tanking everything. Things like Chaos Storming you and your target requires you to stay in melee range for only a while, and you usually have other defences up to compensate for the face tanking anyway (e.g. Chaos Storm). An effective Staff Mesmer (previously) flits in and out of melee range, closing in only when it suits them. If you always stay in melee range then you’d be taking far more damage than you need to, plus you won’t be taking full advantage of the Staff’s best defensive skill: Phase Retreat.

Besides, unlike PvE mobs PvP opponents do not always stand there and let you hit them, they’d be moving around too; and you might not be able to hug them all the time. I don’t think I need to explain the advantages of having the option of ranged combat over being forced into melee.

Yes I understand that — I sorta thought it was obvious. Saying that I like staff for melee doesn’t imply face-tanking, nor standing there like an idiot getting wailed on. You need to get into melee if you want to take full advantage of the self-shatter, 30pt mez trait.

My point was a counter to a pure mid-range use of the staff. Consider also using the staff in melee against non-melee opponents — again very effective.

If you’re trying to stay in melee range against a non-melee opponent, don’t you think they would be trying to stay away from you? What you say works in PvE because it’s easy, but try it in PvP: it’s hardly that simple.

As said, Illusionary Persona is not a particularly important trait for Condition Mesmers. The most you get out of it is two extra stacks of Confusion, which given the state of Confusion is not a big deal compared to the +50% damage you get in a Shatter build. It’s not bad, but it’s not essential either; and many Condition Mesmers do not take it.

Me, I prefer to sink an extra 10 points in Dueling for Duelist’s Discipline and get 100% Projectile Finisher with iDuelist. That’s 8x of Confusion through an Ethereal Field, far more useful than the piddly 2x Confusion from Cry of Frustration.

To be honest, I’d be skeptical of any build that lacks Illusions 5.

At the very least a post saying that they are aware of the issue would be nice. Surely that cannot take more than 15 seconds?

Umbra Eight.3651:

One of the best combinations in staff is Chaos Storm/Phase retreat wherein you can stack boons from the storm, bail when it’s about to end, then stack more boons from the Chaos Armour. The problem is once you phase out you Winds of Chaos bounces are most likely going to be wasted on the clone you left behind. Not phasing out however seems like a serious waste of one of the better weapons combos in the set. Further, I see no justification for this new bounce logic, it’s not like people were tearing up the forum complaining about condition mesmers.

Oh but they were. I wouldn’t be surprised if Anet thought that all Condition Mesmers = Glamour Confusion Mesmers and must be nerfed into the ground.

But no, I doubt this was an intended nerf.

juno.1840:

I use staff for melee range, not mid-range because:

- bounces hit me, and hit me fast
- eliminates the pain of the slow #1 projectile.
- allows me to lay various ethereal fields on top of both me and my foe (chaos storm, NULL field).
- clone creation and shatters at point blank range (including self-kittener)

Yeah I know sword is really good for this, but I find staff the most fun in melee.

Side note: I prefer to use NULL offensively because of it’s devastating effects on bunkers. If I get to stand in it too, bonus!

If you stay in melee range then you’re essentially face tanking everything. Things like Chaos Storming you and your target requires you to stay in melee range for only a while, and you usually have other defences up to compensate for the face tanking anyway (e.g. Chaos Storm). An effective Staff Mesmer (previously) flits in and out of melee range, closing in only when it suits them. If you always stay in melee range then you’d be taking far more damage than you need to, plus you won’t be taking full advantage of the Staff’s best defensive skill: Phase Retreat.

Besides, unlike PvE mobs PvP opponents do not always stand there and let you hit them, they’d be moving around too; and you might not be able to hug them all the time. I don’t think I need to explain the advantages of having the option of ranged combat over being forced into melee.

Condition Builds scale very well of CritChance actually, because of Sharper Images. Also, if your allies are not Condition-specced then your conditions will overwrite theirs and not vice versa, because the stack with the highest damage has priority.

Vulnerability on Winds of Chaos is fine to me, it’s a balancing factor… at least, that’s what I would’ve said before Anet went and nerfed Winds of Chaos with their bounce logic change. Previously you could easily maintain 10+ Bleeding and very constant (sometimes even peramanent) Burning on the target while stacking multiple stacks of Might and maintaining permanent Fury on yourself. You could still do that now, but you’ll have to stick to your target like glue for that to happen.

Yes, an acknowledgement would be nice.

juno.1840:

I play staff up close so the change doesn’t impact me much. I feel staff is not really a good range weapon anyway.

I don’t think this was an intentional nerf. I think it was a side-effect of another change. That happens often when writing software for a complicated system with lots of inter dependencies.

There is a difference between medium range and melee range. Previously you reach the Staff’s maximum DPS at around 600 range, now you practically have to hug your target to ensure you catch all the buff bounces and that your IE bounce will actually hit your target instead of being gobbled up by a Clone. Overall not only is it much harder to keep your DPS maximised, you’re also forced to expose yourself to much more danger to do so.

I don’t think anyone considers this an intentional nerf, which is why it’s so sad. Staff Condition Mesmers are so off Anet’s radar they nerf us (twice) unintentionally.

Mesmer Condition builds wreck almost everyone underwater. Which I guess is a small consolation after how badly we’ve been “accidentally” nerfed.

Hexxen.7216:

I see a lot of people saying Veil is a utility elite skill. I don’t see it. The only time it comes in handle to actually do a surprise attack is placing it right in front of a keeps gate before running outside. The stealth is crazy short so you can’t really use it to run away. Because the stealth is so short you can’t really use it to stealth you when running at a keep or camp for a surprise cause you would have to be too far away from it for an opponent to not see you.

I totally agree it needs a massive CD reduction and a stealth increase. BUT I would also rather have our bugs fixed first.

For situations like that Shadow Refuge is far, far superior. I don’t think Veil should be as good as Shadow Refuge: stealth is after all primarily the Thief’s domain: but I do think the discrepancy needs to be smaller.

The same goes for Mass Invisibility.

Well, if you compare Veil with Shadow Refuge… they have their pros and cons, but I think overall Shadow Refuge is just better. Shadow Refuge has a long prep time compared to Veil, but in group situations you have to plan for group stealth anyway so that’s hardly a problem; and I’d take a much longer stealth for a few seconds of prep time any day. In solo situations… well, plenty of solo Thieves take Shadow Refuge, but what solo Mesmer takes Veil?

Overall I think Veil could do with a CD reduction to 75s and a boost of stealth duration to 3s, or even 4s as was originally intended. Mass Invisibility could also do with a CD reduction to 60s too IMO, especially given it is subject to the AoE limit which makes it worse than Veil in zerg situations.

Not sure if this was mentioned in this thread, but it’s not just Clones being bounce-to-able that screwed up Staff Condition Mesmers, it is also the loss of bounce logic. Previously bounce logic was enemy-ally-enemy (alternates), but now it bounces to the closest target regardless of whether they are an enemy or an ally.

Since Winds of Chaos only has a single bounce this is not usually a problem: except Staff Condition Mesmers rely on the extra enemy bounce from Illusionary Elasticity for like 33% of their DPS, and now that extra enemy bounce could easily become a useless Clone bounce.

I’m hoping that the “balance patch” will address all this by, say, making Illusionary Elasticity apply to Staff Clones (and for God’s sake fix the bug where Staff Clone WoC inflicts 5s Bleeding instead of 7s, this is bug fixing month isn’t it?).

P.S. Because of the loss of bounce logic iMage can actually hit enemies after the first hit now, except for some reason it never bounces back to an enemy it hakitten before.

Iruwen.3164:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6nPo5jJuU

What the hell does it bounce off here? That thing cannot even be targeted…

Epic fail. GG Anet.

Still not fixed. I’m hoping that Anet sees this as a bug to be fixed for “bug fixing month” and will balance it out when “balance month” comes, but I have doubts it will happen. It seems to me that Anet Devs think Shatter and Phantasm Mesmers are the only Mesmer builds and are unaware of all else.

Bas.7406:

Just so you guy are aware, this has been the case with every other class weapon skill that works like your bounce for quite sometime. The Mesmer’s were an exception to the rule, and speaking from the rest of the community welcome to our world. It’s not a big deal, as every other class has been working under the assumption that this was normal.

The problem is that Mesmers have an entire build that revolves around a bouncing attack capable of hitting allies and enemies. Other professions do not have autoattacks that do this, much less builds that depend on said autoattack. To make things worse Mesmers also tend to have lots of useless targets (read: Clones) up to steal bounces.

So yes, it is a big deal. Condition Mesmer DPS is greatly nerfed.

The main issue here is Anet making sweeping (and hidden) changes without stopping to consider how this affects builds that aren’t FotM. By focusing mainly on FotM builds how do they expect to improve build diversity?

Zumi.6384:

Simonoly.4352:

Difficult to pin down as he could have been using a combination of that magic well and the plethora of stealth skills available to the Mesmer. Traited for Prismatic Understanding you’ve got: The Prestige (4 secs), Decoy (4 secs), Veil (6 secs) and Mass Invis (6 secs). He was obviously there to troll away, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was using portals to revisist the Magic well and then using other stealth skills.

Just a minor correction, Veil is 2 seconds by default, 3 traited. The tooltip was wrong until recently.

You can run across Veil twice.

WyldKat.4712:

Soooo the one with the boons isn’t always the real one now? Greaaat.

If you can’t recognise the real Mesmer without this then you need re-evaluate your play.

Assassin.7890:

sarcasm yeaaah
I mean, that is hilarious – cmon, a buffed clone? in PvE Content they tend to do 0 dmg.

Might also affects Condition Damage, which Staff Clones (or any Clone with Sharper Images) dish out.

The problem, however… is that Might on Illusions doesn’t affect them at all, while Might on yourself boosts the damage of you and all your Illusions.

Having Clones steal your Might stacks when they can’t even use them is just… well.

jportell.2197:

Actually illusions now inherit our condition duration and damage. So the burning from a condition clones winds of chaos will be as good as the burning from the mesmers WOC.. However the new bug that is being talked about is that clones are getting priority over the Mesmer to receive the buffs from WOC and these buffs do not help the clones condition damage… they don’t scale on their own they scale from us… So if we aren’t receiving the buffs and they are then it is helping exactly nobody.

Plus Condition Mesmers rely on Illusionary Elasticity to double-tap enemies, but now Clones frequently steal the second bounce negating that.

Zenith.7301:

Condition mesmers don’t work because clones don’t scale from condition relevant stats, and most importantly the random nature of application (specifically the useless vulnerability that doesn’t affect conditions, and a power based phantasm on a condition weapon like staff).

Clones do in fact benefit from all condition relevant stats. The random nature is a balancing factor IMO, remember all Clones also cast Winds of Chaos (albeit at a significantly reduced rate).

The problem is that the last patch made it so Clones can be the target of bounces, and bounce logic is no longer enemy-ally-enemy; it’s purely based on which is the closest target. This ruined Illusionary Elasticity and also ruined Might and Fury stacking on the Mesmer, as Clones are stealing all the bounces (and worse, Might doesn’t even affect the Clone’s DPS).

In the patch before that, Blinding Befuddlement was severely nerfed because of a knee-jerk reaction of the Devs to Glamour Mesmers, which in turn ruined its synergy with Chaos Armour and effectively killed it completely as a trait.

The main purpose of this thread, the be honest, is not so much about Condition Mesmers specifically, but a plea to the Devs to not ignore non-meta builds (and nerf them without even realising it) if they’re truly serious about improving build diversity.

Yes, the problem seems to be that the Devs don’t even know the Condition Mesmer exists. They probably (like most players) think that Condition Mesmer = Confusion Mesmer, or worse Glamour Mesmer.

You don’t see many Condition Mesmers in PvP. They’re not as good as Phantasm Mesmers in duels, and they’re not comparable to Shatter Mesmers in tournaments. In fact most people don’t even know what a Condition Mesmer is, thinking it’s the same thing as the “Confusion Mesmer” that used to be popular in WvW. Not even the Devs seem to realise it exists, as no patch ever addressed the Condition Mesmer directly.

I guess the reason I am making this thread is to make the Devs aware that there is such a thing as a Condition Mesmer. The reason for this is because a few changes in the past few patches have nerfed Condition Mesmers indirectly: first was the change to Blinding Befuddlement, a change that seemed to be aimed at WvW Glamour Mesmers but also destroyed the trait for non-Glamour Mesmers. Then, there is the hidden change to bouncing attacks in the 28/05 patch, which has decimated Winds of Chaos and neutered Condition Mesmer DPS.

Previously, while the Condition Mesmer was not the best build, it was still viable for most encounters. Now? I am not so sure. So please Devs, if you’re truly trying to increase build diversity in all professions, please consider how the changes you make affect builds that aren’t in the spotlight.

Given that Condition Mesmers were never in a great spot to begin with and have received a number of apparently unintended nerfs, I’d really like to bring this to a Dev’s attention.

Yes, I mentioned in the first paragraph that bounce logic is now based only on distance and not on enemy-ally status.

Confusion inflicted by Illusions, which can occur from Confusing Combatants or the Phantasmal Mage, are shown separately to Confusion inflicted by yourself (which includes Confusion from Shatter skills). Is that what you’re seeing?

It used to be quite obvious when Trident Clones inflicted Confusion.

As of last patch, bouncing attacks capable of bouncing to allies can now acquire Illusions as bounce targets; and it appears that bounce logic is now strictly based on distance and not on whether the target is an enemy or an ally. This, overall, is a nerf to the Condition Mesmer.

For my builds, my condition DPS with the Staff can be divided into three very roughly equal parts: Staff Clones (33%), myself (33%), and the extra bounce I get from Illusionary Elasticity (33%).

Now however, the extra bounce from Illusionary Elasticity is very likely to bounce towards a Clone, instead of double tapping my target. The 33% contribution of Illusionary Elasticity to my DPS then is, overall, reduced.

The other problem is that previously, if I do not have allies around, the bounces from myself and my Clones tend to bounce towards me, giving me Might and Fury. This allows me to maintain quite a few stacks of Might on myself, which “transfers” to all my Clones boosting their damage as well; and while Fury on me doesn’t transfer to my Clones it does give me a better chance of proccing Sigil of Earth.

Now, Bounces from WoC will bounce towards my Clones if one of them is the closest target. Not only does this hamper my ability to stack Might, but it doesn’t even affect the damage dealt by the affected Clone (there is some weird things going on with this but overall this statement is correct). While Fury may have an effect (difficult to test this one) and Sharper Images is better than Sigil of Earth, Clones also attack much more slowly than I do. I don’t think this benefit outweighs the drawbacks.

.

However… I feel that this nerf may be an opportunity. Now that Illusionary Elasticity is not a near-guaranteed double damage to Winds of Chaos, perhaps it could be fixed to work with Staff Clones without being OP.

Oh and I might also mention here that the bug where Bleeding from Staff Clone Winds of Chaos lasting only 5 seconds, instead of 7 seconds as with the player’s Winds of Chaos, remains unfixed.

A few clarifications.

IE has always worked with iMage. It is only with Staff Clones that it doesn’t work.

Fury on yourself does not give your Illusions higher critical chance, and Might on your Illusions does not boost their damage. Only Might on yourself gives your Illusions higher damage, and only Fury on the Illusion gives it higher critical chance.

I have not checked this patch out myself yet, but if Clones are hogging all the bounces (negating IE’s double tap for your own WoC and wasting all the Might boons) then overall I’d say this patch is a nerf for condition Mesmers.

Compounding Power does not affect damage dealt by Illusions. Neither does Empowering Mantras.

1. Game Modes other than Conquest.

2. Greater build diversity: preferably brought about by buffing the many sub-par skills and traits that exist in every profession.

3. Solo queue.

Which is stupid because Glamour Mesmers are already neutered by the Confusion change. The change to Blinding Befuddlement needs to be reverted, it’s a typical case of (collateral) overnerfing.

Anet claims that they want to do small changes instead of blanket nerfs/buffs, well. They’re rather inconsistent about that.

Carighan.6758:

Embolism.8106:

People need to remember that Clones use Winds of Chaos too.

Bringing us right to the next issue, unbalanced clones. I think we’d be better off if Clones didn’t cause damage / debuffs at all (except via Sharper Images), and the weapons were rebalanced with that in mind.

I don’t see why that is an issue. Clones don’t have to be equal as long as the weapons are balanced with this in mind, there isn’t a need for Clones to be equalised and weapons rebalanced.

Either would be too powerful. It is fine as it is.

People need to remember that Clones use Winds of Chaos too. Three Staff Clones and yourself with Illusionary Elasticity can keep conditions on your target pretty well, even the 1s Burning sometimes can be maintained permanently if you’re lucky or invested a bit in CondDuration. Allowing you to near-permanently Cripple or Weaken your target is far too powerful.

Typical Shatter build is 10/20/0/0/30 +10, typical Phantasm build is 10/15/0/25/5 +15, typical Condition build is 0/20/20/0/20 +10.

These are the three main builds you would see in WvW and PvP. In tPvP only Shatter builds are used, in sPvP (duels) Phantasm builds reign supreme. Condition builds are kind of the black sheep that only a few enthusiasts stick to (like me).

This may seem obvious but, are you maintaining three Staff Clones (or maybe a Duelist) on your opponent? Winds of Chaos is a rather poor condition attack even with Illusionary Elasticity, you really do need Illusions to help keep your opponent Burning/Bleeding.

I find that Blinking right into your opponent’s face (or preferably behind them) can often surprise them, especially if you use Far-Reaching Manipulations. You could also use the Sword as your other set to close the distance with Illusionary Leap.

Changing Vulnerability to a damaging condition or even removing it would make the Staff OP IMO. Besides, Vulnerability is not completely worthless: it is one more buffer condition for your opponents to cleanse. Although I think there is a fixed order in which conditions are cleansed anyway so perhaps that’s not that useful.

In any case, I’m fine with Vulnerability being there. But I do want the Bleeding bug on Staff Clones be fixed, that could be all the condition Mesmer needs.

The iWarden deals the most damage in a single attack, but that doesn’t mean it has the highest DPS. Remember it takes 5 seconds to execute its attack and then does nothing for 9 seconds, for a total of 14 seconds. Most other Phantasms have more than twice the attack rate.

It’s not a bad point however. When have you ever seen people take Temporal Enchanter? A lot of professions have undergone trait condensation (and overhaul) around Beta and Release, the Mesmer didn’t.

shimmerless.4560:

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

Time warp skill cool down is not to bad compared to human elite skills. but its not a glammer and time warp can also kill you fast. if you have confusion on you and you are able to spam skills very rapitally you can down your self lol.

Quickness can be a bit weird in other ways, for example (most) leaps only travel half the distance under Quickness.

Casting fields while under Quickness causes them to expire quicker, which is a problem for non-ticking fields like Feedback.

Regeneration is a boon you only appreciate with Healing Power investment. It scales beautifully off Healing Power.

It is not at all difficult to maintain three Illusions with most builds, and with three Illusions Ether Feast heals about 45% more HPS than Mirror. Also consider that a lower CD is not always an advantage as you don’t always use healing skills on CD. With a difference of only 5s, it is not uncommon for the practical CD difference between Ether Feast and Mirror to be minor, if not non-existent.

This same “problem”, greatly magnified because of Mantra of Recovery’s channel time and multiple charges (it doesn’t go into CD until all charges are used, so you’re forced to use them all at once anyway if you want to maintain the CD advantage), makes Mantra of Recovery much worse than its HPS would suggest. With traits however its HPS can be pushed to ridiculous levels that overcome its shortcomings.

Mirror’s Reflection is great, however it is a situational effect that may well have no impact at all; thus I don’t like to count on it on a core skill.

It’s strange that despite the Inspiration line containing extremely powerful defensive traits, it is almost never invested in outside of Phantasm/Reflection builds; and those builds don’t take the said extremely powerful defensive traits.

I think the problem is that the Mesmer’s ability to avoid damage coupled with strong healing skills makes the Inspiration line redundant, thus it makes better sense to invest in offensive traits. And we don’t see Mesmer tank builds being popular either because the way the Mesmer avoids damage isn’t very conducive to the point-holding gameplay of tPvP.

Now that Quickness has been nerfed, I think Anet may wish to consider making Time Warp a Glamour skill. Particularly since all other forms of Quickness have gotten reciprocal buffs.

Then again I’d really like to play the Mesmer without feeling I must take skills like Time Warp whenever I play with a group, so I dunno. From a purely selfish point of view I’d rather Time Warp be nerfed more actually, as it’s still pretty much compulsory for Mesmers in groups.

Ether Feast is one of the best healing skills in the game, and Mantra of Recovery has the highest HPS of all healing skills (although I believe the Engineer’s Medi Kit provides more HPS across all its skills). Of course it comes with its disadvantages, and is not often used over Ether Feast unless traited.

Mesmers also have access to permanent Regeneration through Phantasmal Healing and pretty potent healing from traits like Restorative Mantras and Restorative Illusions. These traits are not often taken though, as the main Mesmer builds don’t really have room for them.

Ryuujin.8236:

Otter.6348:

You’re missing my point. Look at a Warrior – does he do less damage because he doesn’t run toughness or a specific trait?

Not sure a warrior is a fair comparison; what about rangers? – A large portion of their damage is handled through their class mechanic in the form of a pet, and their pet also suffers many of the problems that our phantasms suffer (Worse in fact, if a ranger’s pet dies it’s out the fight for a full minute. A clone can be replaced in seconds)

Ranger Pets are quite different from Mesmer Illusions. Illusions use your stats: if you’re glass cannon your Illusions hit hard, if you’re tanky then you’re Illusions… aren’t tanky, and don’t deal much damage. Pets on the other hand have their own stats: even if you’re tanky and deal little damage yourself, your Pet still does the same damage; which can be quite high in some cases.