Guild Wars 2

Mesmer beating down golem too hard by using torment, lol.
Hope the balance team can come up some better reason behind their nerf hammer. But probably they won’t.
Now I completely lost respect and trust in them now.

I am fortunate that I am never a condie lover. But condie mesmer will never be a thing.

Dawdler.8521:

This seems to imply that iLeap was ever fixed since 3 years ago?! Man I must have missed the big event

Yeah, it was working pretty well since they changed the clone spawn to be next to the target.

So I guess I have to play staff for now?

The main power of IP is the on-demand usage of F3 and F4. It will improve the MtD firepower marginally not dramatically.

Ranger is fearsome because they can +1 burst you from 1500 range. This is even worse than thief/mesmer stealth gank.

How many times you are in middle a fight and a pewpew ranger comes. You realize you are in an open terrain and have nowhere to hide. Then pewpew comes and you die. The ranger walks away like a hero.

Yeah, at least let it play out.
I will completely lose faith in the balance team if they base their balance on how hard you can beat down a golem.

Condie mesmer will probably rely on ineptitude now.

Then next they will probably put 10s iCD on Blinding Dissipation w/o any compensation to Ineptitude.

They want to buff condie spec and then nerf the important condie application trait. Seems rather counter-productive to me.

I rarely play the condie mesmer spec so again I could be wrong.

Happicakes.2054:

Well, it looks like nerfs to MTD are already confirmed by Jon Peters and Karl in chat : ( (8 torment stacks at 3.1K a tic when standing still was pretty awe inspiring)

3.1K?How did you get that number?
The standing still formula for torment is
1.5+(0.225*Level)+(0.055*Condition Damage)
using Rapid amulet and condie rune would be 1375 condie dmg
So level 80, the damage per second should be 95.125, 8 stacks gives 761

I might have missed something important. But 3.1K is still HUGE.

Then what do you think about Engi just gets one additional F5 no matter what specialization they choose?

Also not fair to you?

Another good way to think about chronomancy is that do you really think it’s mandatory? If you truly believe that an additional F5 is overpowered, then let’s see if every mesmer will be chronomancer after expansion.

I suggest you watch one of the top EU player commenting on his own gameplay at an ESL tournament to get a better feeling of what all the conquest game mode is about
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvrWKXY6Qo

There is surely a lot of random factors in GW2 pvp. However, whether you win or not is largely independent on these RNG factors.

I am sorry but I have to defend the distortion trait.
The dev mentioned it will be effective only over a very small radius, you really have to stack with whoever you want to share your distortion with. You only need ONE teammate to stand slightly further away from you to hold point.

However, I agree that the exclusion of warden phantasm from distortion trait is bad. I would be happy if these two traits swap positions.

Includes all professions. Listen to devs’ thought on the mesmer change.

One interesting thing is that Robert Gee mentioned both Bountiful Disillusionment and Master of Fragmentation will benefit Chronomancer F5 shatter. The former gives resistance and the latter applies slow to enemies when you continuum rift ends.

Also, I checked thief part. They specifically mentioned there three stolen skills got changed not including consume plasma. So if you see a thief traiting Improvisation, be prepared to fight against them with close to 100% uptime of all these boons.

It’s okay to push far. But once you realize it’s too risky and not very rewarding to engage in a fight there, plz rotate to mid instead.

It’s not just far point.
People need to learn that there are situations that they shouldn’t engage in fight.
e.g. 3 players coming home, I am just gonna spam all my cool downs and hold the point as long as possible. Result: Die in 5 seconds and all your utilites on cool down after you respawn
The correct response should be giving up the point temporarily and either wait for you allies to come back or rotate to any of the other two points to fight.

Really?
I feel the changes are made so that all other builds can benefit from shatter more. It does not destroy other builds, quite on the contrary, will create more viable builds.

If you know you gonna play the expansion from day 1 no matter what, then just pre-order since you will get access to beta-weekends.

If you, like some others, are not that interested in what has been announced and would like to decide after having a better picture of all the content that is going to be included, then wait it out.

Remember that most current condie based builds already counters most power based builds.
The reason that condie builds are not usually played at high level is because the meta features warrior, ele and guards who all bring a tremendous amount of condie cleanse. I don’t see the condie builds easily turn the table around.

Yeah, better wait a bit.
But the nerf to celestial they mentioned is likely only applied on PvP amulet. However, there may be no more nerf since both condie change and no stats from trait lines will both limit its power already.

Pure wishful thinking from your side.
Anet will look at numbers. The number that shows how many people already spent money on the preorder after a day, a week and a month. If the number meets their expectation, no compromise will be made. If not, you can get better deals.
It is pointless for them to waste time explaining their business model with forum heroes.

You get it right. The PU condie build is mostly about ability to survive and wait for your enemy to kill himself.

Surely you can try to apply a bit more pressure by using your scepter 2 and 3 more aggressively but that could also put you in a more vulnerable spot. However, if your opponent knows what he is doing, he can always ignore you and leave.

That’s why more experienced players tend to go for power shatter build which is more risky but more fun and has more potential to land a kill. You can also try the maim condie shatter build which is reasonably tanky but can apply a tremendous amount of condie pressure.

Last but not least, the new big balance update will land next Tuesday. There will be no clone death traits which is an important part of current PU condie builds. PU gets buffed by quite a bit though. So it will be good time to experiment new PU build.

50 dollar is actually reasonable for vanilla + expansion.
The problem is that old players got the short end of the stick as we can’t get an upgrade for reduced price.
The only benefit we will have is beta weekend access and a worthless title.
They better come up with something more shiny to attract people to pre-order.

The only complain I have is no extra character slot for existing customers.
They could have it as a nice bonus for us and a much better incentive for more people to pre-order.

lighter.2708:

Exciton.8942:

Laraley.7695:

Exile.8160:

skowcia.8257:

Exile.8160:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hehe yes.. Keep complaining about Engis.

We’ll just kindly overlook the rain of glory that showered Mesmers.

Unlike Engis mesmers needed some buffs to stay in line vs thiefs. I still dont see why engis are complaining they are getting some really strong buff and yet complain of the few tweaks they got.

No. Mes dindt needed any buffs. He was already strong. Thief needed a nerf as he push out all zerk builds. Instead………lets say the faceroll getting real.

I agree but since they buffed thief HAVE to do the same to the mes or its going to be more of a hard counter to mesmers.

Well, now you’ll have thieves still wrecking mesmers and mesmers gonna wreck every other zerker class. Good balance!

Mesmer was never able to wreck every other zerker class to begin with. Medi guard, fresh air ele and GS warriors all have either upper hand or roughly equal with mesmers. The only reason teams take mesmer is because of portal not because it trashes all other zerker spec.

that’s not true…every single build you listed, mesmer have a upper hand, except maybe medi guard

Not sure how much time you spend on mesmer and any of the specs listed.

Go check out supcutie’s guide to mesmer and his detailed analysis on some of the matchups.

Or go check out helseth’s stream and see how he lost to ROM’s zerker warrior several times.(Both are top-notch players)

PU gives memser an option to disengage when needed, especially after thief shadow refuge.

Did they also make decoy a manipulation skill?
This could definitely be a problem

Laraley.7695:

Exile.8160:

skowcia.8257:

Exile.8160:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hehe yes.. Keep complaining about Engis.

We’ll just kindly overlook the rain of glory that showered Mesmers.

Unlike Engis mesmers needed some buffs to stay in line vs thiefs. I still dont see why engis are complaining they are getting some really strong buff and yet complain of the few tweaks they got.

No. Mes dindt needed any buffs. He was already strong. Thief needed a nerf as he push out all zerk builds. Instead………lets say the faceroll getting real.

I agree but since they buffed thief HAVE to do the same to the mes or its going to be more of a hard counter to mesmers.

Well, now you’ll have thieves still wrecking mesmers and mesmers gonna wreck every other zerker class. Good balance!

Mesmer was never able to wreck every other zerker class to begin with. Medi guard, fresh air ele and GS warriors all have either upper hand or roughly equal with mesmers. The only reason teams take mesmer is because of portal not because it trashes all other zerker spec.

azizul.8469:

double veil for WvW !

And a few engineers happily throw some aoes on top with Lock on trait.
The majority of your zerg will be revealed!

66600 will be many players’ choice for power-based mesmer after the new patch comes online.
All three GM in chaos line are solid and there are good master/adept traits to choose from as well.

Because people find game stagnant and they will leave.
They need something brand new to bring back players even if that means they have to rebuild balance from scratch.
Also, devs may like a chance to overhaul everything so that they can implement some of their more crazy ideas.
It’s more fun in the end for both players and devs.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Exciton.8942:

SlimChance.6593:

Does it matter. From the looks of it. We’ll all be trying to keep up to Engi’s as usual.

EDIT: I just realized something. With Improvisation and Consume Plasma, thieves will leave us for LAST. They’ll just keep stealing from us so they can down everyone else first. We don’t have to worry anymore. Its really a buff to Mesmer!

.. always look on the bright side of life…
https://youtu.be/WlBiLNN1NhQ

That sounds about right. Next time I see a thief, i will just type in “Don’t kill me. I am your buff generator” in the chat.

oh…they will kill you first alright…
mesmers now have immense potential to 1 hit KO any class, especially thieves.

Oh well, I could one shot KO thief before with a simple shatter combo…It really doesn’t mean anything. Ranger could also almost one shot me with a LB2.

SlimChance.6593:

Does it matter. From the looks of it. We’ll all be trying to keep up to Engi’s as usual.

EDIT: I just realized something. With Improvisation and Consume Plasma, thieves will leave us for LAST. They’ll just keep stealing from us so they can down everyone else first. We don’t have to worry anymore. Its really a buff to Mesmer!

.. always look on the bright side of life…
https://youtu.be/WlBiLNN1NhQ

That sounds about right. Next time I see a thief, i will just type in “Don’t kill me. I am your buff generator” in the chat.

Learn to be constructive and provide more feedback especially after the patch is online.
They WILL need to make more balance changes as this one is pretty huge. Consider WTS final is August, they should make sure the balance is at least half decent by that time.
From the two Euro teams and one US team, there are 7 different professions already, big balance hole will make it look incredibly bad.

If you actually look through thief changes, they got quite buffed as well. So I am really not sure how it will turn out.

Thief Improvisation combined with Consume plasma seems to be too strong.
Consume plasma gives 10s of all the boons in game while steal has close to 20s cooldown.
This means, as long as thief enters a fight where an enemy mesmer is present, the thief can get close to 100% uptime of all boons in the game. That sounds a bit too scary to me.

No change on consume plasma is a bit sad.
Thieves can now trait Improvisation and have a freaking almost 100% uptime of all boons in game.
Hopefully this will prove to be too strong soon and gets nerfed.

Illusionary Leap: Increased the delay before the clone is summoned by about 0.25 seconds to allow players to start casting this skill while moving within range and not have it fail. Speed up attack of illusion by about 0.35 seconds to allow better tracking against moving targets.

This does look like a slight nerf to me that our most used combo burst will be 0.25 slower.

This trait will counter shadow refuge and veil quite well.
It will be hard for thief to rezz people in a refuge.

condie shatter can be quite good especially after the condition gets enhanced by vulnerability. Now you can actually benefit a lot from domination line for condie shatter to do crazy damage.

The new mimic skill looks really interesting.
It could also have great synergy with the new F5 with chronomancer. Looking forward to some crazy tricks you guys come up with.

MailMail.6534:

I wonder what the duration on AOE Moa is… I would be even more horrified if it’s actually 10s.

Also, why couldn’t they have simply chosen another creature. AOE quaggans would be nice. It just makes our elite seem totally flavor-less.

Lol, if it is 10 second MOA, then the cooldown should probably be like 10minutes.

The whole illusion trait line is not well-designed at the moment.
Traits of similar utility kinda compete for same spots and will simply be judged by their raw power. Phantasmal Haste definitely needs improvment.

The shatter recharge rate decrease will be included in a minor trait in illusion line.

If you stick to 66006, you will get reflection on distortion by traiting master of fragmentation. In addition you can trait torch for some nice condie cleanse.

But if you do GS/staff, you will probably trait 666000 instead though.

Congratz on reaching 80.

So now you can start to learn playing your class better and better in various game modes. Look for some guides online and try out different skills. Then do whatever that is fun to you.

I’d suggest elementalist for you. Very versatile and good mobility. Very effective in WvW both roaming and zerging. Guard probably need traveller runes to keep up its mobility. Also in WvW zerg, you kinda need an optimized group setup to maximize its potential.

Highly suggest trying out mesmer in PvP as well. The most fun class for me. Has a variety of playstyle. The meta build for mesmer(power shatter) is a bit hard for starters as it’s very squishy. But the idea of kiting while commanding your clones to do tons of damage is really satisfying.

I run power shatter in both PvP and WvW.
The rifle/GS warrior seems to give me a lot of problem(mostly WvW). Their rifle AA hits so hard and they have mobility to kite me forever. Even if I get close, a sudden GS3 can take out chunk of my HP. Also, gaining an advantage means nothing, they can just disengage and re-engage at will.

I am seeing so many players giving up today.

Does the mist call just invite all the farmers to PvP? So annoying.

Arricson Krei.9560:

It’d be cool if you specified which gamemode(s) you play Spirit Ranger, but I think immobile spirits is a good idea. They need to buff the range substantially, though. Running around with squishy allies makes cleaving and aoe much more effective. Smart placement would require an enemy to focus their attacks on another location if they really needed to kill those spirits.

Why does it sound like turret engi deja vu to me?

They will balance in a way that the auto attack do pretty much exactly same condie pressure as before. So the only improvement is vulnerability having more synergy with condies.

Not a significant change.