Which isnt to subtract to the past efforts of Suflea, Chaos, and Pyro who did the bulk of the admin.
I would feel very very very guilty if I didn’t add Vin to this list, probably at the front of it.
Considering there are millions of accounts it is not suprising that there would be someone with 2k hours and 3 tonics. Law of large numbers again. There will be people who play 20,000 hours of fractals and get no tonic at all to make up for it.
Just as there will be people who get 100 precursors with the same amount of effort as someone who got only 1-3 precursors.
I don’t think you realize it, but you just made a very efficient explanation for why the system is awful and needs to be changed.
The argument made to justify the current rarity is that it increases the value and prestige of the item. However, not only is this not true, but it is actually opposite to reality. This can be easily demonstrated as follows.
When you see someone with the tonic, what do you think? You definitely don’t think “wow, they must be really good at fractals!” You probably don’t even think “wow, they must have run a lot of fractals!”
However, you almost definitely think “wow, they’re lucky!”
The fractal tonic is so rare that the perception is that running a lot of fractals has a negligible effect on your chances of getting it: close to zero no matter how much you run. This has the distinct effect of devaluing the tonic, taking it from a rare prestige item to a random novelty that has the same chance of being found by a noob with 15 AR and a veteran with thousands of fractals under their belt.
There are two viable solutions to this. One option is to increase the drop rate. An item can be both extremely rare and obtainable with enough effort, these are not mutually exclusive concepts. If the drop rate was high enough that most super heavy fractal runners could get one, it would still be rare and prestigious, but obtainable.
Personally though, I’m not a fan of RNG in any form. Even with the higher drop rate, you could still get screwed over, and a noob could get it on their first run. Therefor, I feel that the best solution is a deterministic method. The advantage of this is that everyone knows just how much effort it took. The prestige is inherent in the fact that when someone sees the tonic, they know exactly how dedicated you were, how much time you spent, how many fractals you ran to get that prize. It also means you’re not at the mercy of the RNG; if you want the tonic, you just have to go and put in the effort to get it, not get on your knees to rngesus.
Obviously, a deterministic method would need to be appropriately difficult/time consuming to maintain the rarity and prestige of the tonic, but that’s just bookkeeping. Conceptually speaking, I feel that this is definitely the best way to make the tonic obtainable while also rare and prestigious.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
It’s not a question of the people, it’s a question of the arguments. The argument for wanting it to be rare is fallacious and absurd. The argument for wanting it to be obtainable is sensible and logical.
Mallyx?
/15 charrs with apples
Mallyx has no stunbreaks and 0 synergy with any power build. Not to mention that you have to take Corruption.
God forbid you have to sacrifice something to get something else.
The ironic thing is, it still doesn’t have clears.
And I nor will any revenant sacrifice viability just to get condition clears. The whole point why we want condition clears is to BE more viable without humping an Ele’s leg. Mallyx, Ventari, and Jalis don’t put as in a more viable state.
Amazing that I have to spell that out to your dense kitten .
If you’re sacrificing viability to get clears, then clearly you’re currently viable and don’t need buffs.
I haven’t been following the polls, someone mind explaining to me why op feels this way/what they’re talking about?
The results from the poll were
(Factoring out “Ignore my vote” selections)
38.1% Re-evaluate every 1 month
15.9% Re-evaluate every 2 months
28.9% Re-evaluate every 3 months (this is the current default)
5.5% Re-evaluate every 4 months
11.6% Re-evaluate every 6 monthsIn response to this, ANet’s interpretation was to split the difference between the two most popular options and to re-evaluate every 2 months.
Personally, I think that is a sensible and defensible interpretation (though it is not the option I chose).
A majority did want a shorter matchup, and they delivered to that. A sizeable minority also wanted the default/current length of matchup and they paid respect to that preference as well by splitting the difference between the 1 and 3 month preferences.
Should’ve just went with the majority… but then again, I voted for 1 month too so…
Well, there was no majority (no option > 50%), so I think they did ok.
Any choice would have been not chosen by most people. Splitting the difference between the most popular 3 is fair enough.
I also chose 1 month.
Yeah, that’s the key: all options were under 50%. In most normal voting schemes, this usually signifies a revote or a move to some other method of determination. Splitting the difference was a good choice.
Mallyx?
/15 charrs with apples
Mallyx has no stunbreaks and 0 synergy with any power build. Not to mention that you have to take Corruption.
God forbid you have to sacrifice something to get something else.
If you’ve got boonstrip, just roll through them with shatters and interrupts. If you don’t have boonstrip, you’ll need to play carefully and wait out their buffs. We could give you more targeted advice if you gave us some examples of the builds you play.
Yeah, fractals is the avenue that they touted as being a way to bring back the best bits and pieces of old content into a playable form.
Has this actually happened? Not since the molten/aetherblade fractals were added, but it’s still theoretically what they’re supposed to be doing.
RS: Yeah and its worth more than half the the energy revs start at on swap. It costs two Surge of the Mists or two Unrelenting Assaults.
It’s a stunbreak + condie clear + movement skill. Yeah, it is worth that.
CH: Lol, “fantastic” yea except you’re a sitting duck. If its so good please tell me why no rev runs Soothing Bastion.
Sitting duck…in a block duration. Hardly a sitting duck.
SotM: It has been nerfed 30% since rev’s release.
And it’s still brokenly overpowered, so what’s your point?
The issue I am pointing out is that there have been so many rev nerfs with no buffs in any other area being discussed.
You say this as though nerfs have to be compensated with buffs to be “fair”. You’re wrong. Revs were brokenly strong, so they got nerfed. They’re still extremely strong, so they’re probably going to get nerfed more, and without buffs because that would sorta defeat the purpose of nerfing them.
Do you even play a rev? Put weakness on a rev and use a skill like Rise and GG no more damage. Put conditions on a rev and they can’t do anything. CH makes you a sitting duck because you’re literally stuck there. Once it’s over, YOU’RE over. And LOL at you saying SotM is “overpowered” still, I dodge that kitten all the time, l2p. Have you even ever played a revenant??
>claims to reliably dodge a skill with zero activation time
I completely believe your claims. I have no doubts whatsoever about them. I’m positive that you’re being completely truthful in what you say. There is no possible chance that any of these statements may be anything but the pure representation reality.
I haven’t been following the polls, someone mind explaining to me why op feels this way/what they’re talking about?
The results from the poll were
(Factoring out “Ignore my vote” selections)
38.1% Re-evaluate every 1 month
15.9% Re-evaluate every 2 months
28.9% Re-evaluate every 3 months (this is the current default)
5.5% Re-evaluate every 4 months
11.6% Re-evaluate every 6 monthsIn response to this, ANet’s interpretation was to split the difference between the two most popular options and to re-evaluate every 2 months.
Personally, I think that is a sensible and defensible interpretation (though it is not the option I chose).
A majority did want a shorter matchup, and they delivered to that. A sizeable minority also wanted the default/current length of matchup and they paid respect to that preference as well by splitting the difference between the 1 and 3 month preferences.
Honestly, that’s pretty reasonable. You know what they say though: “A good compromise leaves everyone angry.”
I haven’t been following the polls, someone mind explaining to me why op feels this way/what they’re talking about?
RS: Yeah and its worth more than half the the energy revs start at on swap. It costs two Surge of the Mists or two Unrelenting Assaults.
It’s a stunbreak + condie clear + movement skill. Yeah, it is worth that.
CH: Lol, “fantastic” yea except you’re a sitting duck. If its so good please tell me why no rev runs Soothing Bastion.
Sitting duck…in a block duration. Hardly a sitting duck.
SotM: It has been nerfed 30% since rev’s release.
And it’s still brokenly overpowered, so what’s your point?
The issue I am pointing out is that there have been so many rev nerfs with no buffs in any other area being discussed.
You say this as though nerfs have to be compensated with buffs to be “fair”. You’re wrong. Revs were brokenly strong, so they got nerfed. They’re still extremely strong, so they’re probably going to get nerfed more, and without buffs because that would sorta defeat the purpose of nerfing them.
Balancing Revenant: Nerf the hell out of Rolling Mists.
Thats critical hit effectiveness right? I still don’t understand why that’s a thing. 20% crit chance goes up to 40% crit chance with fury , fury gives 20% crit chance. basically 60% crit chance with no points in precision. Ok…
no it only increases fury from 20% to 40%, but this is still an op trait
I said with fury
it would make that 40% go to 60you dont understand, it only takes fury from 20 to 40, nothing more and nothing less
Ok I’m going to simplify it as much as possible so you can understand what I am saying. Roiling Mist increases crit effectiveness by 100% , If the rev already has 20% crit chance , With fury (requirements of the roiling mist effectiveness) would make it 40% crit chance. Fury is a boon that gives 20% crit chance. When the rev has roiling mist and fury, you basically have 60% because of the trait (roiling mist 100% crit effectiveness) and Fury (20% crit chance.) If you do not understand this. I am done going back and forth.
No this is not how it works. The trait works only with fury boon, wich means if fury gives 20% more critical chance, with this trait fury will give 40% more critical chance. So is not true you have 60% critical chance when using this trait. You have 60% critical chance if you have 20% critical chance stat, and fury. Its not the 20% of fury plus 40% from the trait…
Death Perception necro trait work very similar, except that increase 50% critical chance instead of 20%.
Just to clarify a slight misstatement. The trait actually works on any increased critical chance modifiers, which isn’t limited to the fury boon. It will double the effectiveness of the sigils that provide critical chance, though that’s the only other crit chance modifier I can think of off the top of my head.
I’ll give you roiling mists if I can have riposting shadows,
Still an incredible stunbreak-movement-condie clear skill.
crystal hibernation
Still a fantastic defensive skill that has built in sustain.
and surge of the mists back.
Still incredible damage and cc.
I’m…not seeing the issue here.
That and Resistance really needs to be updated to match protection instead of completely ignoring all effects from all conditions.
Either that or give it the stability treatment, where it stacks up and stacks are removed every time it nullifies a condition. This has the added benefit of drastically changing its interaction with boonshare. Boonsharing a stacking boon has no effect on its duration, only the stack size. This would make it so that boonshare comps could still burst up a ton of stacks of resistance a few moments before the engage to beef up their frontline, but they couldn’t just roll around permanently stacked up with resistance.
That could work too. Though just for clarification, if I had say 4 stacks of bleeding are you envisioning that taking 1 stack of resistance to nullify since its only 1 condition, or 4 stacks of resistance since its 4 stacks of a condition?
Another option that ANet has would be to change Resistance so that it only affects some effects of conditions. Either it could prevent them from hurting you, or prevent the movement impairing effects of conditions but not both. This would at least give the other group the chance to do something in the fight, whether it be merely hurt the boonshare blob or impede their movement.
Though like someone else mentioned, really the amount of condi application needs to be cut down as well.
I’d say have it work exactly like stability does now.
If you have bleeding on you (are stunned) and gain resistance (gain stability), nothing happens, as you need a condition removal (stunbreak) to remove conditions (cc).
If you have 5 stacks of resistance (stability) and an attack would apply 4 stacks of bleeding on you immediately (multiple ccs would land simultaneously), 1 stack of resistance (stability) is consumed to nullify the bleeds (cc).
Generally speaking, yes. Shield provides a lot of quickness, a lot of alacrity, solid damage (especially on large targets), amazing cc for bar breaking, and great defense. You’re really not giving up much damage, even in a less than optimal situation for party buffing.
I’ve taught people with zero experience how to run a boss before (i.e. they’re experienced on VG and gorse and I explain sabetha once we get there), and they’ve performed far better than people who have claimed experience. Honestly it’s really an issue of individual player skill and intelligence. If you’re smart and good at the game, you’ll be able to handle yourself well enough that LI ping teams won’t notice the difference.
Why on earth would people start grinding boss failures if killing all 9 bosses 1 time each would cap?
If the shard cap were raised by what some people are requesting that might not be true anymore. The OP’s suggestion might not hit that limit, but then again that was only one of my reasons for personally liking a 100 shard cap per week.
From reading the thread, the majority of cap increase suggestions are focused around the fact that killing 6 bosses will hit the cap. Therefor, the 3 bosses that the third wing adds will be rewardless due to already having capped out on the original 6. An appropriate shard cap increase would allow raiders to cap at 9 bosses instead of 6, which makes logical sense from a rewards perspective.
Some people certainly are proposing much larger increases, this is true. However, most suggestions are upset at hitting the cap before finishing all 3 wings even when doing perfect runs.
Siege trolling/tactivator abuse is something that’s been around since WvW has existed (the siege trolling at least, obviously). It is absolutely a punishable offense, but it is extremely rare that Anet actually takes action against it.
Whenever this topic comes up, I always draw an analogy to the way Anet handled the market/crafting exploits that went around at the beginning of the game. Many people decide to abuse an exploit to make money. Anet permabanned the lot of them, no questions asked. This happened several times, and now anyone that knows about this is wary of using/abusing something that even smells like a market exploit, because we all know that Anet will ban you in the blink of an eye for that sort of thing.
This attitude needs to be extended to WvW siege trolling. If Anet decided to start permabanning anyone that trolled like this, all of a sudden you’d see a lot less people trolling. They simply have refused to do this so far, and so the opposite effect happens: people troll because they know they won’t get in trouble for doing so.
I am completely tired of hearing about raids. Create some content that the majority of people want to play.
In other words, create some mindless boring casual fluff that is only worth doing once and takes 15 minutes.
This is an MMO. If you don’t like actual good content, don’t play this genre.
A stellar example of the raiding “community”. I realize that not all Raiders respond in this manner, but this sort of attitude, which I see far more often than not, lends largely to why I haven’t gotten involved in raiding. Exclusivity is lonely.
Raid folks reply to your accusations with hostility because you’re directly accusing raids of being the reason for the content drought in the rest of the game, when the reality is that the raids are being made by ~5 people. Taking those 5 people off of raids would contribute jack to pumping out faster content in the rest of the game, but it would definitely prevent them from doing what they’re obviously extremely talented at doing: making good raids.
I stand by that 100 shards per week is a good cap because it limits the frequency that things like ghostly infusions enter the market and also maintains the value of rewards like ascended armor that can be obtained through other means. A lot of players also play specifically to hit the cap, so if the cap gets raised people will go back to what was happening with only 1 wing out and grind failures of bosses to hit the cap, which is not what ANet wants.
Why on earth would people start grinding boss failures if killing all 9 bosses 1 time each would cap?
Making is shareble with Signet of Inspiration would fix it a little bit
On a scale of 1 to celery elery, that would be celery elery broken.
How about using shatter skills grants same (maybe halved)alacrity to allies on range?
Now that’s a more interesting and balanceable idea. I think something like that would need to be implemented as a trait, specifically a trait with drawbacks.
“Shatter skills now apply alacrity to allies in range as well as the mesmer. Alacrity duration from shatters is halved.”
While I don’t think blocks are really an issue, most of what you linked are joke skills that have nothing going for them apart from being unblockable. For a start, anything that isn’t a CC is going to barely make a difference to your DPS (necro might be an exception here), and you’re burning traits or utilities on them. Secondly, CC’s can run into stability (which is far, far more common) and be wasted.
I’ll reiterate.
Warrior: Fear Me, the numerous CCs with signet.
Guardian: Used to be traps, now none. I suppose Line of Warding or Ring of Warding if your placement is exceptional.
Rev: Phase Traversal into Staff 5
Thief: Basi Venom
Engineer: Magnet
Ranger: Pet taunt used to do this, but rooting while someone is blocking is still pretty strong.
Mesmer: Temporal Curtain
Necro: So many, warhorn 4, staff 5, dark path when they have stab with PoC
Elementalist: Static Field, Unsteady GroundThat’s a whole plethora of unblockable CCs that will get your opponent out of their block.
Again, temporal curtain is not an unblockable cc. The cripple from walking over the line is unblockable, but I’m pretty sure you’re not jumping for joy about that one. The pull is very blockable.
That and Resistance really needs to be updated to match protection instead of completely ignoring all effects from all conditions.
Either that or give it the stability treatment, where it stacks up and stacks are removed every time it nullifies a condition. This has the added benefit of drastically changing its interaction with boonshare. Boonsharing a stacking boon has no effect on its duration, only the stack size. This would make it so that boonshare comps could still burst up a ton of stacks of resistance a few moments before the engage to beef up their frontline, but they couldn’t just roll around permanently stacked up with resistance.
Warrior: Signet Mastery (Trait), Signet of Might, Fear Me
Revenant: Phase Traversal
Guardian: Traps (nerfed, sry), Ring of Warding, Line of Warding
Thief: Basi Venom, Choking Gas, Larcenous Strike, Traps
Engineer: Magnet, Slick Shoes, Acid Bomb, Orbital Strike, Poison Grenade, Tornado
Ranger: Roots, Traps
Necro: Marks (traited), Corrupt Boon, Warhorn#4, Dark Path
Mesmer: Mirror Blade, Temporal Curtain
Elementalist: Phoenix, Static Field, Tornado, Unsteady Ground, Magnetic Grasp,Long duration blocks in the game: Rev shield, War shield, Mesmer shield, Engi shield + gear shield, Guard virtue
Is this few counters? Seems like every class (besides maybe Guardian) has a really easy and reliable way to deal with blocks. Save your CDs if you know you’e fighting a class that’s going to use blocks. That’s what to “git gud” means.
Temporal curtain only goes through blocks in the wild fantasies of mesmers, but not in real life I’m afraid.
With a standard PvE rotation using 3 wells and 2 shield phantasms, alacrity is permanent on all sub-group members.
If everything goes accordingly that only results into 107% alacrity for 5 allies (incl. you), so “just” enough for the ideal situation. If anyone misses a well he’s “penetrated”.
I tend to go for 3 avengers and calamity instead. Safer and just a damage shift from swordy to calamity, but aoe and better with CS.
If you are solo – Recall AND 3 avengers ofc.
Alacrity is a support mechanic -> Supports are for teamfights (at least not 1v1) -> Avengers die from all the AoE damage or have to be shattered in order to heal yourself a bit
Don’t worry about Xyonon’s response — he also missed that you’re talking about PvP, and was responding to me with respect to PvE performance.
Damage: I recommend equipping an elementalist.
Support: sw/sh traited for quickness and alacrity sharing through wells and signet of inspiration.
Making is shareble with Signet of Inspiration would fix it a little bit
On a scale of 1 to celery elery, that would be celery elery broken.
the mesmer boonshare trait could have a cap on how many boons it shares, maybe 3-5, and exclude stab and resistance.
honestly i think all boons and condis should have a hard cap.
Ah yes, the classic "lets slaughter mesmers in PvE with myopic and absurd mechanic changes due to PvP and WvW concerns’ idea.
“You gain 1 might and steal 2 might stacks from your enemy for each illusion shattered.”
This makes no sense if you think about it a bit, but it could be modified into something usable. The main issue is that it steps on the toes of shattered concentration, but I’ll mention it anyhow.
“Remove a boon from your enemy with each illusion shattered. Gain might for each boon removed this way.”
I feel like buffing classes and traits is the wrong way to go about things. We already have issues with power creep, and 25 might self stacking classes are already a pain in the rear. It’s better to just nerf the living hell out of some (cough-condi-cough) play styles so that its not “one is better than the other”, but rather “one fits a situation better than another”.
To be fair that goes with just about everything.
#bringbackzerkmeta
#condigameplayencouragesbadplayers
#probablytriggeredfayDepends dude. Like with my suggestion (although pyro shot it down) if there is something else for the trait to offer then we can make something with that. Condition transfer on a trait relieves the outmost reliance on Inspiration thus opening more builds.
A reliance on inspiration isn’t why power shatter is non-viable though. Condie shatter needs inspiration too, so it doesn’t really make sense to lock condition removal behind a trait that is impossible for a condie build to take.
You should get roughly 100 additional shards per week if you turn in all the minis and salvage all the ascended junk the raids throw at you.
Ah yes, the “I get really good RNG, so everyone that doesn’t get good RNG should suck it” argument…
The trait is okish for feedback/null field/time warp. However, the particularly annoying thing is that the trait is 100% non-functional for Veil. This is a trait for a specific class of skills that straight up does not function for one of them. How is that ok?
the trait does function 100% with veil. It does not give super speed/ resistance to people who pass through it, only people the veil is casted on within a small margin around it.
Exactly, which counts as completely nonfunctional. Veil doesn’t actually work if you cast it on top of yourself, only if you run through it once it’s already casted, so in order for you to use it properly, you must avoid getting any benefit from the trait. It’s absolutely absurd, and effectively nonfunctional.
Short answer: no, that build is bad.
Long answer: I highly highly doubt that build can do 100% uptime on quickness. Additionally, it has poor alacrity uptime, expensive gear, and poor damage.
For dungeons and fractals you should be using a variant of the standard chrono raid setup: dom/ill/chrono with sw/f + sw/sh, or maybe sw/sw instead of sw/f. You can drop domination for inspiration if you need a lot of reflects, and you should be taking heal well, quickness well, alacrity well, signet of inspiration, and time warp. You should be using zerker gear and chronomancer runes.
Edit: I think the creator of that build is under the mistaken impression that the stability from BD and the quickness from sieze the moment is aoe. Neither are aoe.
I have a much better idea.
Everytime you gain might, you transfer a condition to your foes ICD 7secs
You gain might for each illusion shatteredPROS:
- You retain the Hybrid aspect of Illusions
- YAY! No more pigeonholing to Inspiration
- Opens up more builds
Honestly, this makes no sense. What happens when you gain might without a target? Why would I take a trait that will proc when I probably have a single stack of vuln on me and then be down for 7 seconds?
The trait is okish for feedback/null field/time warp. However, the particularly annoying thing is that the trait is 100% non-functional for Veil. This is a trait for a specific class of skills that straight up does not function for one of them. How is that ok?
Sorry, forgot to mention that this topic mostly relates to PvP.
Ah, well, that changes things I suppose.
With a standard PvE rotation using 3 wells and 2 shield phantasms, alacrity is permanent on all sub-group members.
In all seriously, just quit the game for a week.
Turn off the game, go outside, and don’t touch it again for a week. If you’re breaking keyboards and working yourself into a frothing rage over a game, seek help. You have bigger issues to deal with than losing a bunch of virtual pips through pixels on your screen bashing at each other
Quoted for truth.
1 stack of might is still in line compared to other similar master level trait.
But I agree on that might before shatter part. Because our damage relies a lot on shatter but if they don’t benefit from that might stack, we lose out most of its benefit.
Sure, similar to other master level traits on other classes that come equipped with a ton of ways to stack might other than that. We’ve got pretty much nothing outside of the bounces on mirror blade and shattered strength.
(btw we STILL never got to use it post “band-aid fix” on shatters, and that has still never been addressed either.)
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that never happened
as before power shatter user to be without any cleanse. so mor or null, should be enough for good power mesmer to handle it.
Yeah, but that was back when condies were not meta at all. Poison and burn didn’t stack, immob didn’t stack, you didn’t have all the HoT powercreep. Back then condie clears were basically needed for soft cc and that’s it. Now is a totally different ball game.
You may be right that MoR is enough…but it’s certainly not a given.
See, this treating me like an idiot thing is not productive. I know how stats work.
Then why are you claiming that this change would improve the build from season 2? That claim doesn’t even flirt with reality, because S2 meta was a hybrid build revolving around MtD.
It was a hybrid build that still did a large part of its damage with power – 20 might stacks, power stats & if moa is too crap now, switching to gravity well allow it to hit hard other ways
Anyway, I don’t think you’re really trying to consider alternate views so I’ll be off.
I don’t think you understand. Shattered strength and maim share a spot. If you remove maim, the build no longer is “hybrid”. It’s just power, and it’s 100% totally different.
If you’re trying to buff a burst damage build by buffing a line that works around sustained damage, yeah, that won’t work easily. But that’s not because shattered strength is “too weak”. Instead consider what this would do to a paladin or demolisher version of last season’s meta build.
As for engi traits, I was already comparing to those, and this trait is very similar in power to mass momentum.
What it would do to last season’s meta build? Well, it would make the build absolute garbage because last season’s meta build was condition damage with MtD. Next question.
Boss drops worth more than the shards themselves? Don’t make me laugh, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all week. I’ve cleared the raids enough times to purchase a full set of ascended armor purely from shards.
In that time, I’ve gotten 1 ascended boots.
Yes, the boss drops are fantastic and valuable, please tell me more.
So the question that you always need to wrestle with regarding a frontline Mesmer build is …but why?
Can you survive? Yeah, reasonably well. You’ve got stability from shatters, so combined with the stability change you should be pretty ok for most pushes. You’ve got decent health and armor and the channeled blocks from shield, so you’ll usually survive. However, this doesn’t answer the question of why.
If you’re really going for a boonshare comp, you get the boonshare rolling before you actually engage, that way you don’t have important boons stripped before they can be shared. Additionally, you don’t generate any important boons in the middle of a fight. All the aoe BD boons are basically garbage compared to what your group should be maintaining with just normal upkeep, and the quickness/stab on shatter don’t last long enough to share them in a meaningful way. You don’t have a real way of applying resistance, so that’s out too.
Lastly, you’ll barely do enough damage to even tag things with your sword cleave, you have essentially zero aoe, and your only big control skill skills are either on a long cd or like to disappear upon hitting a funny wall or a recently downed enemy.
So we get back to the question of …but why? You don’t contribute anything to a frontline group outside of the initial boonshare that should have been done before the engage. During a fight you’re just soaking up healing and boons that could instead be getting applied to an actually useful class like warrior or guardian. There’s really no reason whatsoever to run a frontline Mesmer build.
Without any boon duration it’s a 5-10% damage boost for build that shatters regularly which is about on par for a master trait. You might be able to argue for minor buffs but doubling it is clearly unreasonable – 3 shatters would send you directly to 24 might, and with Chrono that would be easy.
You say this like Ross’s change would allow you to just slot in shattered strength and lickety split be OP! Well, I’ve got some news for you unfortunately: That isn’t how this works. At all.
The meta power build uses chrono for obvious reasons. This is non-negotiable. The meta power build uses domination for boon strip and damage. This is non-negotiable. The meta power build uses inspiration to stay alive. This is non-negotiable.
Whoops! No room for illusions!
Ok, lets see then. What can we drop? Well, we could drop domination, but losing out on the big damage amps/power block and the boon strip on shatter is going to be a massive loss in the current meta of everyone and their mother spamming boons. We could drop inspiration, but losing out on the reliable condition removal it provides is going to make it difficult for you to survive in larger fights.
Quite honestly, I think Ross’s suggestion is too weak for it to still ever see use. The sacrifices required to actually take the trait are massive. Either other changes need to be made, or the trait needs an even larger boost: to 3 stacks per illusion shattered.