You can always play a Chaos/Inspiration/Chrono power build and take PU. It works just fine.
PU condition build is worthless because you need to give up either chrono or inspiration which is a deal breaker.
Another decent power build would be Domination/Inspiration/Chrono(probably the best power build). You can take power block which is still a pretty good interrupt trait. However, if you really want to interrupt, I suggest you play DP thief with pulmonary impact. It provides more damage more consistent interrupt.
Last, you can always play the same Illusion/Inspiration/Chrono trait line for a power build. The traits are the same as you took for the meta condition build. It works decent for power build as well. But it will never be as strong as the condition variant.
Direct damage can be mitigated by armor.
Condition damage bypass armor but can be cleansed.Seems pretty balanced to me.
Cleanses have not kept up with the rate of condi application though. As long as condi application far outshines cleanses this isn’t a viable argument. Plus, with the simplistic LIFO cleansing system, its trivial to add cover conditions and make it so that the few cleanses the target has can’t actually cleanse the dangerous conditions.
Unless either the amount of cleases are increased substantially (which shouldn’t happen, just more power creep), or a proper cleansing hierarchy is implemented (which should happen regardless) then they aren’t really that great at mitigation anymore.
You actually do have dedicated sustain builds that can keep up with some of the most nasty condition application. For example, I have a healer tempest with soldier rune, diamond skin and cleansing water.
Also, I don’t think you should have all-around builds whose cleansing can keep up with condition application. If your condition cleanse can cover most conditions applied, what is the point of playing condition build anymore? That means you can face tank everything they throw at you and just cleanse them afterwards.
it’s all in the attitude.
rote with your team, not against them. make a difference in fights. analyse what you could have done to win.
Exactly.
The most important thing is to accept the fact that you are not as good as you think you are. From there, either you try hard to improve youself or live with what you can currently achieve.
Blaming teammate is meaningless. The current matchmaking is just the widely used system you will find everywhere. Unless you have some brilliant idea that will shake the statistical world, there is no point complaining about it either.
Direct damage can be mitigated by armor.
Condition damage bypass armor but can be cleansed.
Seems pretty balanced to me.
I think some counter to sneak gyro and celestial shadow is nice.
Currently you need scrapper or herald on your team to counter that. If you don’t have those two classes, team fight can be really really difficult if enemy scrapper/druid knows how to rezz.
Professions like thief and mesmer are expected to be the play maker of the game.
If you play well, you can carry the game hard. If not, you can also easily put your team at disadvantage.
So as long as we chose such professions as our main, we have to withstand the hate when we didn’t perform.
Reaper/Necro has no out-of-jail button or good mobility to get in and out of combat.
That means most 1v1 you go in will be dictated by your opponent. If they are smart, they will engage you at a time/place that is to their advantage.
So in the end, players out that going for a build for dueling is meaningless. Even if you go for tanky sustain build, opponents can easily +1 you everytime. Players decide to use a group fight orientated build which gives reaper a meaningful place in the team.
Fair point, but it’s not as bad with power builds. A power build at least gives the opponent a chance to dodge out and pop defenses. Sure, you might hit someone for up to 10k with a full-glass nade throw or something, but that’s the MOST you’ll get out of one skill. After that, they have a chance to react – dodge, LoS, move out of range, use blocks, invulns, defensive skills, counterattack with CC, etc.
Condi.. well, not every class has on-demand cleanse every few seconds. If I happen to catch someone with their cleanse on 4 to 5 s cooldown, they essentially get 1-shotted by condi-burst. There’s nothing they can do about it except hope a nearby ally will rez them once they go down.
(off topic: Why is “4dash5s” with a – instead of “dash” a censored word?
Condition are applied by skills as well. You can also avoid skills that apply conditions just like you do against power build. There is no fundamental difference.
Yeah, there are skills that feel a kitteneesy to fight against. But tell me how fundamentally different are the power staff evade thief and condition evade spam thief.
DH is not really meta. Easily countered gameplay is easily countered. This is why it falls off in usage the higher you go.
Traps are triggered by pets/clones. Dodge through them.
Not sure why you’re mad, but just calm down and try different things. Unless you’re a necro, at which point get your minions to eat the traps and line of sight cheese.
But in the range I mostly play (1600-1800), the DH class is a bit too prominent and too effective.
By being even higher, it is like the top 150 range. That only represent a tiny fraction of PvP players. And I am not sure if DH is really bad or out of meta there.
Evade spam staff or condition thief.
I personally don’t see the benefit of spending time trying to make hot join a different experience when we’ve already done all the work in unranked and ranked arena. Custom arenas support a casual, low-restriction experience and blending that more with the rated arena experience will only appeal less to the intended audience.
I do not agree with this.
I played hot-join when I first started PvP. It was very unfun for a casual like me. I just don’t see how constantly spectating to force team swapping is a good experience for anyone. I think it is already not restrictive as players can join and leave a game at will. Allowing player to keep swapping team is just making the whole gameplay meaningless.
Yeah, you can say that we should just go play unranked and I agree with that. But saying the current custom arena structure is actually decent for some sort of casual experience is just lying.
Reason why condi works so well is because…well it’s condi. Enemy keeps getting damage cause of the lasting condition applied to him which makes kiting easier. Thus you don’t have to be on their face all the time aka better surviving. Doing so it pairs really well with toughness and/or vitality. Which makes it even more ridiculous.
I for one am pretty much in similar position as you are. Don’t like to play condition builds but it works so i use it. However unlike you i do have a few changes. For instance my setups is a mix of Dire/Trailblazer. This mostly because Dire is super easy to get as where Trailblazer is expansive to make. (I do plan/work my way up to full Trailblazer btw). Also i run Chronomancer instead of core Mesmer, because i love chrono and core is kinda meh to me. Again not the most fun build to use. But it works.. hell.. its very strong even. My current setup: http://tinyurl.com/chrono-wvw-condi (Yes its absolute cancer)
As for powerbuilds. I find them mostly weaker, but likewise i also have seen people that can play it really well. Even in outnumbered situations. few examples are these:
http://tinyurl.com/yt-scarlet-phantom
http://tinyurl.com/yt-tsuki-yomi
We apply condition damage and power damage in the same way: shatter clones. There is no fundamental difference. It is just as hard/easy to do one way or the other.
The reason why condition build is superior is following:
1. We can trait to apply condition damage through all shatters. But power shatter mostly comes from F1 shatter. We do have a bit better power damage phantasms but that is not the main source of our damage.
2. Illusion line is better than Domination line as it synergies with chronomancer line better. It so happens that illusion line boosts both our clone summoning, shatter and condition application at the same time. It is only natural to go condition builds.
I can argue that even if you build for power. Illusion line is still better compared to domination.
To Excition,
lots of hardcore wvw guilds in T1 already transferred out T1 in the past two months
like MAS, SEAL, REKZ, and ETC. The stacks already got loosen a lot.In addition, T1 means T1. U complaining about t1 servers having more hardcore WvW
players is like you, as an ordinary person with a BS degree getting paid 50k a year,
complain to ur boss about why a person with a master degree gets paid 100k a year.
People in t1 have been putting more time and effort and overcoming the hard and
boring matchup to stay in the tier. At this point, if u still wanna complain about it, I got
nothing to say to you. This issue is not something to be solved by Anet. Its how the game mode has been going. If a strong one exists, a weak one does. Law of nature.Since 5/4/3 changed nothing so far but making more odds, 1 up and 1 down may be an option to prevent the T1 servers from being stuck in t1 and getting same match-ups over and over.
LOL wat? I was not even complaining about anything.
I was merely stating the fact that 1 up 1 down is a meaningless change when you already have dev manual adjusting glicko and keep repairing servers.
I am not even complaining about T1 because I have never been in that tier. It is all the other ppl in this thread stating that they don’t enjoy it. This is just a simple fact. Players made their choice by transferring out of T1
At least disenchanter feels a rather decent skill.
But our utility bar feels so fixed now. Portal/Signet of illusion/Blink are almost mandatory skills…There is just no place for other utility.
1 up and 1 down is a rather meaningless change. It would be a waste of resource if Anet decided to work on that.
With constant repairing and manual glicko adjustment, we are already getting a variety of matchups. But a variety of matchups does not mean fun and balanced match ups.
The fundamental problem here is that you have two servers that are stacked by hardcore WvWers. Whoever gets rotated into T1 will not enjoy the matchup. This is not something you can solve by 1 up and 1 down.
Also remember, if you happen to have a balanced tier, 1 up and 1 down could make things worse by rotating in a much weaker server every other week.
I think healer tempest is still quite useful in WvW groups, zerg or small group roaming.
No. Staff can be used for both power and condition builds.
However, it is not a widely used weapon in any PvE content. It works just fine in open world. But there are better options in dungeons, fractals and raids.
In WvW, it is a pretty good choice for certain builds. But zerker mesmer is not that useful in WvW either.
Don’t forget that before HoT, most OP builds use celestial amulet as well.
Remember shoutbow, cele ele and cele engi? They dominated PvP for quite a while.
I mainly play mesmer and DH stacked game is still the hardest for me to perform in.
Traps after traps cleave make it incredibly difficult to do any damage on them.
Remember once I thought I baited out the test of faith only to found out it is the trap laid by the other DH.
The goal is to reach 100% boon duration in the end. You don’t have to use leadership runes.
You can definitely use durability runes and a few more commander gear to make up the difference. But remember with the amount of toughness you get, you might just want to play the tank role in raid.
I can’t imagine how complicated and unintuitive such a system has to be to even be remotely fair.
Just take an example. A thief burst 10k damage and help secure a kill. Compared this to a healer ele who hits like a wet noodle but accumulates tons and tons of damage and healing by staying in a meaningless fight. How would you design a stats system to measure their performance.
This just sounds impossible to me. In the end, a lot of decision making is hard to judge without deep analysis. Looking at some numbers won’t give you even close to a complete picture of one’s performance.
Quickness buffing is something that is very likely to be given to other professions.
Engineer sounds like a good candidate.Absolutely. Not that quickness was ever a “mesmer only” thing, it’s just that Anet seems to want quickness to be the only thing chrono is good for.
And that, to me, is the perfect reason to not give this level of quickness support to any other profession ever. At this point its all chrono is in PvE, a quickness and alacrity bot. Its not good at anything else, at least not good enough to where another class isn’t already better. So if another class gets even a portion of the quickness uptime that chrono does, chrono deserves some serious changes to make it better.
I am hoping next elite spec will let mesmer copy all her boons to her clones/phantasms. That might give mesmer a potential DPS option.
Quickness buffing is something that is very likely to be given to other professions.
Engineer sounds like a good candidate.
One down side of these activation effect of phantasm skill is that you have to be more careful when using them in stealth.
They now can reveal you if you are not careful.
5:4:3 strikes.
Even if you perform to the worst possible, you will still get at least 60% of the winner’s poitns.
Your goal should be finding out those who want to be more serious raiders out of the casuals. This is a very realistic and meaningful goal. You do not need to be super hard-core to beat any of the raids.
A very bad change indeed. They are imposing a not-so-fun aspect of the game on all players. And the sole reason is economy…
I am not aware that the economy is in any bad shape whatsoever. There are already plenty of things you need to craft to obtain. Enforcing crafting on obtaining ascended gear is just a terrible move.
New Player, Sad Player. Expansion ruined it.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Exciton.8942
I understand what the OP is complaining about.
When the expansion was released, the game was already played for quite some time for old players. Most of the content was trivialized so there was a natural demand for more challenging content. That’s why you see a jump in difficulty.
But I don’t think it is so difficult that you can’t even solo progress your personal story. I suggest you take some time figuring your profession skills/traits/gear. Go to the profession forum. Many of us would be happy to provide some suggestion and help.
Still remember the days when hammer and longbow were considered the god-tier weapons for warrior and greatsword was pretty much useless trash in PvP.
Look at your 3/4/5. This is one of the hardest things to achieve.
Anet is not going to dedicate a lot of resource to balance PvP. They spend more resource on creating new PvE content which is obviously the safe choice to keep the game healthy.
With close to infinite possible combinations of traits, amulets and runes, there is no guarantee they can find balance even if they invest in a lot in those. That is why they eliminated many tanky amulets after the first PvP season. They nerfed a lot of skills/traits without considering its synergy with other stuff. They just want to reduce the balance problem to be as simple as possible.
So fundamentally, I can tell you that you can only choose one out of these two: balance and diversity. I am sorry that it is not an ideal world where you can achieve perfection. Other games that are more dedicated to PvP might be slightly better in this regard but it is very hard to achieve the perfection that many of the gamers desire.
What kind of skill level do you expect it to require?
I think it is already quite skill dependent in MMORPG scene. Do you srsly think it should require skills as much as say Starcraft 2? If that is case, I would probably stop playing.
If you really think the game is that simple why not break into the ESL scene? If you can’t be a top player, stop complaining that the game is too easy.
Current raid meta is chrono/druid/berserker/tempest.
But personally, I am not against the idea of having thief taking the dps role. The rotation is much easier to maintain compared to tempest. It is also easier profession for starters given the amount of dodges you have.
If I blame a Tempest for dealing 20k instead of 25k dps, everyone agrees.
If I blame the full commander gear Chrono dealing 5k instead of 10k dps, everyone loses their minds.
People in general don’t blame mesmer for loss of dps(other than quickness and alacrity) because mesmers are always expected to do the dirty work, sometimes sacrificing dps.
For example, a lot of bosses, I need to take focus for the pull rather than sword for the dps. I sometimes take confounding suggestions over illusion damage for the CC. I prioritize ressing over dps all the time.
There is absolutely no reason for mesmer only being able to do 50% of theoretical damage unless he/she has to work on something else. If it is small rotation error here and there, mesmer would do 8k instead of 10k. This is the equivalence of tempest doing 20k instead of 25k, 80% of theoretical dps.
Just out rotate them and use your portal plays. You will beat the bad DH’s if you are really good on mesmer, but general rule of thumb is avoid.
Wait, is there actually some profession you shouldn’t avoid as mesmer?
For meta condition chrono:
You absolutely should take on necro and revenant in a 1v1 as a mesmer. Those two professions are immensely strong in team fights but got completely shut down by a mesmer in 1v1(except for some weird tanky necro build).
You should also learn to 1v1 druid, scrapper and tempest. They are super tanky but with moa, you can take them down 1v1 if you time your burst well.
However, meta condition build kinda sucks in a 2v2. You simply don’t have enough burst to put on enough pressure.
Druid, scrapper, and tempest are usually not worth the time to 1v1. Possible to 1v1? Yes, bu it’ll take ages. You’ll probably get +1d and killed by the time you’re finished with it.
Yea, it is vey situataional. So I was saying learning the 1v1 matchup against those professions is still beneficial but not a must-take fight like against rev or necro.
A lot of times, sustaining a 1v1 against a support-heavy class like tempest is already good for the team. I am pretty sure no tempest likes to isolated into a duel.
Being +1’d is also something I really think many ppl, as well as myself, can improve on. Mesmer is a pretty strong profession in terms of surviving +1. Especially considering we have portal, being +1’d actually gives us chance to turn tide of the battle.
Just out rotate them and use your portal plays. You will beat the bad DH’s if you are really good on mesmer, but general rule of thumb is avoid.
Wait, is there actually some profession you shouldn’t avoid as mesmer?
For meta condition chrono:
You absolutely should take on necro and revenant in a 1v1 as a mesmer. Those two professions are immensely strong in team fights but got completely shut down by a mesmer in 1v1(except for some weird tanky necro build).
You should also learn to 1v1 druid, scrapper and tempest. They are super tanky but with moa, you can take them down 1v1 if you time your burst well.
However, meta condition build kinda sucks in a 2v2. You simply don’t have enough burst to put on enough pressure.
There are a few things you can do
1. Boon spamming
You can be a boon machine through bountiful disillusionment and signet of inspirtaion.
Important boons are usually covered by other professions. But in less organized groups, filling in boons between gaps can still be useful. SoI is still strong after nerf.
2. Distortion sharing
This is one of mesmer’s specialties. Too bad we lost well of precognition. But you can still do decent amount of distortion sharing through F4, signet/F5 reset, signet trait. It does require a bit more coordination due to it being 300 range only.
3. Ground targeting skills
Ground target skills are always strong in WvW. Null field, wells, time warp are all decent skills to add to your zerg’s kitten nal. But utility bar space is precious to mesmer. So you might need to swap skills from time to time. Especially you might be expected to portal/veil for some group.
This is definitely a balance problem in that within each class some traitlines are so superior to others. But instead of buffing core traitlines I would rather see elite spec lines either redesigned or nerfed some more to bring them in line with core traitlines.
The problem is that elite specs are better for mechanical reasons. The only way to make them “on par” would be to straight up kitten them.
Realistically Chrono and DD are the only Especs that are superior for their traits. Most especs are just taken for the profession mechanic and/or new abilities.
Chrono is superior for mechanical reasons imo. Its traits address the mechanical shortfalls of mesmers class mechanic. Mainly, that phantasms are a very large source of our damage and utility, yet our mechanic destroys them. I mean the entire class revolves around letting us shatter without being without illusions for too long, if at all. I would rather they redesign mesmer entirely and then redo parts of the chrono line to mesh better.
Even within chrono line, there is no balance at all. Chronophantasm and illusionary reversion are the obvious choice.
I tried so hard to make a build using danger time and lost time. But they are so trash to make any use out of it.
Tempest traitline is also similar, elemental bastion is so much stronger than the other 2 GM traits.
The spawn of this phantasm can be blocked/“dodged” by the other player if they jump at the right time. Try jumping near the end of the Shield 4 block and it should be spawning more consistently
No. You never jump at the end of casting. Jumping will simply prevent phantasm from spawning.
It used to work…I just checked in game and now the spawn isn’t delayed at the end of a cast like before.
Yup, they changed it several patches ago.
If you jump early, the spawn won’t be delayed. If you jump late, the phantasm will simply not spawn.
You probably want to learn to play at least one out of warrior, ele, ranger and mesmer.
Necro is good in several boss encounters but not all of them. I would definitely be happy to take necro in raid 1 boss1&2, raid2 all bosses, raid3 boss1. So it is not that bad as you are pretty useful in 6/9 encounters.
edit: actually even raid1 boss3 you can find a role as the flak shot kiter. So that makes you useful for all bosses in raid wing 1 and 2.
(edited by Exciton.8942)
As a casual raider, I find them very fun to play. The difficulty also feels just about right.
I do expect a bit more variety in mechanics and would love to see more boss that work like matthias.
The spawn of this phantasm can be blocked/“dodged” by the other player if they jump at the right time. Try jumping near the end of the Shield 4 block and it should be spawning more consistently
No. You never jump at the end of casting. Jumping will simply prevent phantasm from spawning.
As some one already mentioned above, the blue circle are always put right underneath players in the final phase so I wouldn’t call that RNG.
It kinda already does.
For example, mesmer has to apply conditions through rapid shatters, they all apply retaliation back onto the memser herself. You will know what I am talking about when you are dueling an engi as a mesmer. You will feel the pain if you completely ignore the retal.
is it not easier with scepter ?
I don’t think so. Both scepter 2 and 3 can be easily interrupted.
Sword 3 means you can go toe to toe against DH when he teleports on top of you and burst you with sword2 and focus5. With scepter, you have to time dodge well when DH goes melee.
Overall, DH is condition chrono’s biggest counter. So it is usually the 1v1 you want to avoid.
When you stay on staff against LB, you need to LoS a lot, which means you have to give up cap. Never use shield block before DH uses either LB3 or spear of justice. They both can interrupt your block. If you ever get tethered by spear of justice, be ready to use your distortion. Do not teleport through test of faith with sword 3 or blink, it will do massive damage to you.
Your best chance to do damage is in melee range. But you need to be super careful not burst onto his block skills. Patiently wait out the blocks. When DH goes elite invul, it is your best time to heal. He is locked into that animation.
Rule nr.1 of soloq: assume all your teammates are potatoes and lose all fights.
It is not offense towards the players but it is mentality you should bring to soloq. You cannot rely on teammates unless you know them well.
Also, i can win 1v1 vs most mes on thief. If you don’t get help, chances are you will die and lose point.
If it is staff thief, then I can bait.
If it is dp thief, I am relatively confident to win unless he is just too much better.
I mean if I can’t survive a thief as a mesmer. Then I pretty much lost the game for my team because there is simply no answer. Some one can +1 me, but then the thief can leave and create outnumbered situation elsewhere. If I leave that guy to 1v1 the thief, the thief can always follow me.
That is pretty much why power mesmer was bad in pre-HoT.
(edited by Exciton.8942)
I am too tired to tell my teammates this. But they still love to +1 me so much.
Condition chrono is a strong 1v1er against many classes. But 2v1 is pretty meaningless unless you are a thief who can capitalize on a moa. Chrono is not good at chasing down and burst down targets so you won’t be able to guarantee a kill by +1. This will be bad for your team in general.
Evening a fight to 2v2 with chrono is even worse. It is easy for chrono to kite 1v2 and portal juke. But if you even a fight to 2v2, it makes life much harder. The build is simply not strong in a 2v2. It doesn’t have enough damage when there is support. 2v2 also means much more cleave to eliminate clones. It is simply a unwinnable fight when chrono is facing healer tempest, druid or DH in a 2v2.
As I mentioned earlier, the only exception is probably thief. Even revenant is not good enough after the damage nerf.
I have said this a few times weeks ago.
You need to have on-demand invul or stability that is not on CD or you are doomed.