Guild Wars 2

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Hard stop. Show us proof of negative impact on the game other than a lower skill floor.

You argue all of these semantic but where is any proof.

You have not even had the audacity to show theoretical proof.

Every single comment you made is on anecdotal experience. And we have seen the number of incorrect conclusions from that.

Revenant, mesmer, engie can all have near perma stability. And the non mesmer perma is tied to passive play.

More importantly every single class in the freaking game has a trait that responds to being cced. Some classes even have two.

The kicker to this maelstrom of logic is that you want to balance around wvw. Where stability is readily available for the melee train. You want to balance it for the backline that gets ganked despite evidence such as the pirate ship meta that this would further destabilize the mode. Guarding the backline is part of the strategy of WvW and you seem to just want to make pew pew easier.

’Revenant, mesmer, engie can all have near perma stability. And the non mesmer perma is tied to passive play."

At a pretty high cost such as camping FL etc. And not just WvW zergs. Both WvW roaming and dueling arenas in PvP. in fact not about zerging really at all.

“More importantly every single class in the freaking game has a trait that responds to being cced. Some classes even have two.”

And how many of them do you actually want to take that whole traitline for? All I want is some more counterplay but I guess that’s ridiculous lol.

@Fay

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Confounding-Suggestions-Suggestion/first

Well you can start complaining about this “proof” or whatever when you give some “proof” as to why you would have nerfed it in that thread. Litterly, why would I change it? What reason? Already gave it to you. More counterplay.

Sure thing! Unlike you, I can always stand behind my ideas with solid arguments.

Too many Mesmer mechanics are inordinately skewed towards single target effectiveness. CS is no exception; stun one person aaaaaand that’s it. I wanted to balance it more between multi-target effectiveness and single target effectiveness. Simply making the icd local would drastically boost its strength far too much, so the simple fix is to adjust the icd so that the maximum rate of stunning balances out well for a small group fight, and scales up smoothly into a large fight.

Edit: it’s also worth mentioning that I floated that idea before Mesmer received a string of hefty nerfs to our burst capabilities. At that time, we absolutely were overturned. Now…well, you’ve missed that ship by a couple months.

feight.2704:

There are efficient build without duelling or chrono.
manipulation/signet -> good.

You can’t make a build around manips, and signets are highly questionable without dueling. If you really think you can, then by all means post these builds you’re referencing so we can discuss them.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Hard stop. Show us proof of negative impact on the game other than a lower skill floor.

You argue all of these semantic but where is any proof.

You have not even had the audacity to show theoretical proof.

Every single comment you made is on anecdotal experience. And we have seen the number of incorrect conclusions from that.

Revenant, mesmer, engie can all have near perma stability. And the non mesmer perma is tied to passive play.

More importantly every single class in the freaking game has a trait that responds to being cced. Some classes even have two.

The kicker to this maelstrom of logic is that you want to balance around wvw. Where stability is readily available for the melee train. You want to balance it for the backline that gets ganked despite evidence such as the pirate ship meta that this would further destabilize the mode. Guarding the backline is part of the strategy of WvW and you seem to just want to make pew pew easier.

No proof will be forthcoming. I do, however, look to the future and see another poorly quoted diatribe about how CS is so op that us plebs just can’t wrap our heads around it.

eldenbri.1059:

I don’t play enough pvp to know if it’s realistic, but I can see a case where you have shield and mental defense and you get two Avengers and a Defender up.

I’m not sure how hard it would be to code, but would be ideal for me is if you take a phantasm trait (like Chronophantasma) then clones never replace phantasms. Maybe to make this simpler, make this only apply to the Chronophantasma trait.

In a 1v1? Sure. In anything else? Maybe for a fraction of a second, no longer than that.

@Slimchance: They don’t have a point, they’re just wrong. The scenario you refer to will literally never happen. Clones still overwrite clones, and you will never have 3 phantasms up in pvp, so you will never be unable to create a clone where you want it.

Anyway, no need to respond to that gobbledekitten any more. It’s not incomprehensible because of a language barrier, but because of an experience, logic, reason, and skill barrier.

Edit: gobbledekitten xD

Ok, this is really bugging me. I’ve gone over this before, but obviously I didn’t do it in simple enough language for it to stick.

Why making CS an interrupt trait is a bad idea, now with shorter words

CS does a stun.

CI does an immobilize.

A stun is a cc and an immob.

CI does an immob from a cc.

CI does a cc and an immob.

If CS was on interrupt, CS would do a stun and a cc.

A stun and a cc is the same as a cc and an immob.

CS and CI would do the same thing.

Doing the same thing is bad.

Bad things should not be done.

Making CS on interrupt is bad, and so it should not be done.

Fwiw, I like the chrono lockdown setup that chaos has. It definitely might work a little better with gs for focused burst, but staff is great for the defense and aoe pressure. I didn’t get enough time this past weekend to test it out unfortunately, but I will once hot hits.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Ross Biddle.2367:

So its time for another summary.

Frenchfry’s beef pretty much boils down to-

• “I want more counterplay to CS”

Ignoring, despite it having been pointed out, that there are numerous counters. The question thus becomes “How much more?” Though it’s not been asked/answered, the preemptive argument tacked on to the previously stated “I want more counterplay” is-

• “I don’t want to see mesmer butchered into oblivion. Hell, have some more buffs if you want, on me!”

So in exchange for playing a high risk, glass, high damage based build that can truly utilize the CC effect of CS under MoD, we can have…. more damage? More blinks? More evades? What I want to know is, what good is more of any of this in a high risk build where the landing of your burst is everything? And not just your role, but your very survival depends on your ability to land that burst to apply pressure. Failure to do so means you’re at a severe disadvantage.

More over, MoD + CS is hardly just an offensive tool. It can be used simply to create breathing room (get that thief off your back for a second to pop a heal), or to stop someone getting away (stun into iLeap imob), no damage necessary. The fact you think all MoD + CS charges are spent on GS bursts only further cements the ignorance of the realities within actual gameplay you’ve continued throughout this discussion. If I had a dollar for every MoD charge I’ve had to burn saving a downed allie, or getting a GS warrior off my back, Id buy Bill Gates.

And all this is still ignoring all the counterplay that is present in the game… -_-u

Like I said, you really undermined yourself early on in this discussion. You used CS early on after patch and haven’t touched it since. CS is a great trait, it has good synergy with MoD, and even better in skilled hands with MA or PB. But given the rest of Mesmers features as they currently stand, it’s hardly some one shot, CS/MoD wins all OP powerhouse that requires changing, or at least changing in any way which you’ve suggested thus far.

And I’m sure there is plenty of ways you could buff mesmer.

Apparently not, they’ve already nerfed most of the options available for buffing, somehow I don’t think they’re going to turn around and lay on buffs again…

Seyiwaji.4082:

is it enough explain for you?

Absolutely! It’s all wrong and/or nonsensical, but I appreciate the effort!

Seyiwaji.4082:

first of all
I guess the dev tried what they could and if this didn’t happen until today. It may be really hard or impossible to separe the log for clone production on dodge and on skill.
Since the skill has to function correctly, clone replacing a phantasm; if you have 3; is a must.

What you appear to be trying to say here is that it might be a technical capability issue. This is incorrect. In the past, a change almost went live that was designed to nerf on-clone-death traits, but would have ruined pretty much all shatter builds. This change was going to make it so that you couldn’t produce another clone by overwriting if you already had 3 illusions. Through this almost-change, they’ve demonstrated the technical capability to modify overwrite mechanics.

Seyiwaji.4082:

2nd
Add that there is even clone prodcution on trait. What do you do about decoy and despeprate decoy?
If you play wihout Deceptive Evasion, you should be fine.

The point you’re trying to make here is unclear, so I’ll take a stab at it.

Are you implying that decoy and desperate decoy would simply fail to function if you already had 3 clones? If so, that’s just silly. They’d perform as normal, just as if you had no target selected (they produce no clone in that situation). I’m…not really sure what DE has to do with this though; it’s nothing more than another clone production source.

I also like that you’re trying to imply that people playing with DE are bad, when actually the opposite is true (at least in the vast majority of pre-chrono situations).

Seyiwaji.4082:

If you play wih it, it was stated already, some time you need a clone near you. to increase the burst.

So this goes back to the reason that they didn’t make the change I referenced earlier in my post. However, that logic is completely invalid for a simple reason: you will never ever have 3 phantasms up simultaneously in PvP against a competent opponent. Even phantasm builds won’t have that, they get cleaved down too often. This means that you’ll always be able to produce a clone by you if necessary.

Seyiwaji.4082:

You would make a lot of things useless: like Mirror Images.

Not much to say here other than that you’re just wrong.

So…yeah. In summary, you’re wrong for all the reasons I just said.

Menaka.5092:

it’s a weird question tho… you’re looking for a build for doing what in which gamemode?

He’s not looking for a build, he’s making a point.

I don’t believe there are.

Seyiwaji.4082:

by the time you will learn to play without DE, may be you will come to understand.

….yeah, I don’t think that counts as ‘reason’ or ‘explanation’. Care to try again?

Seyiwaji.4082:

Clone overwriting phantasm is a good thing, and due to the mechanic impossible to change.

I don’t suppose you have some reasons to go along with this useless proclamation?

denis.9487:

Regardless the amount of players playing at that level it tells us what is viable. The skill is what is present. They have practiced honed and devoted many hours we simply don’t have or don’t want to allot to become at that level. If looking at physical skill (10 fingers) then all that is needed is practice. The people at that level have tried other builds I’m sure just due to the sheer amount of time to perfect the skill. So it is meta for a reason. Whether we can do the same is irrelevant. It shows what is viable.

Sorta. It also shows us what they enjoy playing the most. Helseth probably could have done better on thief for a long time, but he stubbornly stuck with mesmer (not judging him for that, just pointing it out).

BetterHappy.2517:

There is a time delay between an instant cast blink and an instant cast professional skill? pls…

Anyways…the guide…

The time delay is between the stun and the damage. You’ve got about 1 second to react once the stun hits, and that’s enough for many people.

BetterHappy.2517:

I wasn’t aware you could react while stunned with anything more than a stun break. Are you a wizard?

Can react with a stunbreak :p.

For example, take a chrono build using well of precognition. The time delay between the stun hitting and the rest of the combo is more than enough to drop well of precognition and brick the rest of your combo. Similar situation with a stunbreak into dodge/blurred frenzy/blocks/etc.

Let me give you a bit of advice.

Creating a comprehensive guide of everything you know is a really really really really big task. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of dedication. I’ve got one started somewhere, cause I wanted to do the same thing. 10 hours in, life happened and I’ve never really kept at it.

So.

My advice is to do it in bite-size chunks. Maybe write your greatsword guide, then publish it. Then do another bit. Link each one together in one main post so they don’t get lost, but whatever you do, don’t commit to doing one massive dump all at once.

Edit: Doing videos with it makes this advice even more important, because videos take double the time and effort of a text post.

Edit2: Your greatsword combo in the video could use a bit of work, the way you’ve executed it leaves a lot of time to react. Better is to start the mirror blade cast, then blink melee range just before it finishes, then do the same thing (plus a dodge roll before the mind wrack if you can). This way the entire combo is completed in ~.5 seconds.

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I heard reports, didn’t know if it was true.

Regularly. Every time he gets rekt and spits his dummy. Anytime a toy gets taken away and he slams down his keyboard, messing up his hair. Usually the change is accompanied by a 45 minute video of dribble about why X is so much better than Y, and the new meta.

Shortly thereafter he’ll be back on Mesmer again. So I wouldn’t worry.

..though I wouldn’t worry regardless -_-u

Oh no! Ross Is Playing KS mesmer, I should switch soon!

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

kolompi.1287:

runeblade.7514:

Ross Biddle.2367:

runeblade.7514:

Velimere.7685:

Impact.2780:

It does need a very short cast time with no after-cast, though,

I disagree with you, and so does ArenaNet… Cheers!

Impact.2780:

It also means when you see the mesmer’s burst coming, and you dodge it, you will successfully counter play it instead of having your dodge suddenly interrupted or prevented.

The counter-play is the long charging time of the mantra skill itself plain and simple.

runeblade.7514:

Easy to achieve actually when accounting to all those hip defensive skills.

They have long duration, enough to get the mantra up.

Your point does nothing to refute my own. You’re still blowing a necessary defensive recharge in order to charge your Mantra of Distraction. This is about as wise as a Celestial Dagger/Dagger Elementalist blowing his or her Lightning Flash to land Churning Earth. If you think that’s also a good idea, then you and I have nothing more to discuss.

Wrong. My points counters yours. Mesmers have so many of those hip defensive skills, and the stealth skills last pretty long thanks to PU. The recharge is low enough for all of them to be on-demand whenever necessary.

The difference between Lightning Flash + Churning Earth vs. The prestige + Mantra of Distraction is that The Prestige + Mantra of Distraction is worth it. The instant MLG stun is leagues better than a few stacks of bleed. lol. I can’t believe you actually compared the two.

Wait, so I have to take the Chaos line + PU + a torch and or Decoy and or mass invis so I can run MoD? I thought there was no cost/investment?

Anyway, how many hip defensive skills do Mesmers have exactly (how many’s “so many”) to serve in the use of recharging mantras? Can you list them for us? I’m fascinated.

• Mind Wrack- Blinds with Blinding dissipation
• Cry of Confusion- Blinds
• Diversion- Instant Daze/stun interrupt
• Distortion- Invulnerability
• Decoy- Stealth
• Portal- if you so choose.
• Blink- Teleport
• Mass Invisibility- Stealth
• The Prestige- Stealth
• Illusionary Wave- Knockback to keep melee away.
• Illusionary Leap- For MLG teleport.

Learn your class

And these will serve to cover the 2,75s of charging the mantra? You do know you cannot perform most of these while charging or you cancel the charge?

Uhmm you can stealth Before you charge? 3 of those Options are stealth
DistortionCan Also Cover that too (varies with clones)
You can Also blink while Charging
You can Also potentially Make A CC miss with A shatter while charging.

The only thing that does not work Here is ileap and I wave.

To Sum it up, 95% of what he said can cover a mantra charging

What if the person trying to interrupt you isn’t a total idiot?

Many interrupts are ranged and blinds are easy to clear. This basically brings you down to stealth and distortion. Now, you can certainly use those to charge it, but you have very limited access to them, as well as potentially needing them for other things.

Yes pyro im not denying what you said, but atleast we can agree that those mentioned can be used to cover it right

Sure, and now you don’t have distortion when the thief jumps on you, or you don’t have stealth to open up with the next burst. Charging the mantra is not free because of ‘op mesmer defensive mechanics’, and implying that it is is nothing but lunacy.

StickerHappy.8052:

kolompi.1287:

runeblade.7514:

Ross Biddle.2367:

runeblade.7514:

Velimere.7685:

Impact.2780:

It does need a very short cast time with no after-cast, though,

I disagree with you, and so does ArenaNet… Cheers!

Impact.2780:

It also means when you see the mesmer’s burst coming, and you dodge it, you will successfully counter play it instead of having your dodge suddenly interrupted or prevented.

The counter-play is the long charging time of the mantra skill itself plain and simple.

runeblade.7514:

Easy to achieve actually when accounting to all those hip defensive skills.

They have long duration, enough to get the mantra up.

Your point does nothing to refute my own. You’re still blowing a necessary defensive recharge in order to charge your Mantra of Distraction. This is about as wise as a Celestial Dagger/Dagger Elementalist blowing his or her Lightning Flash to land Churning Earth. If you think that’s also a good idea, then you and I have nothing more to discuss.

Wrong. My points counters yours. Mesmers have so many of those hip defensive skills, and the stealth skills last pretty long thanks to PU. The recharge is low enough for all of them to be on-demand whenever necessary.

The difference between Lightning Flash + Churning Earth vs. The prestige + Mantra of Distraction is that The Prestige + Mantra of Distraction is worth it. The instant MLG stun is leagues better than a few stacks of bleed. lol. I can’t believe you actually compared the two.

Wait, so I have to take the Chaos line + PU + a torch and or Decoy and or mass invis so I can run MoD? I thought there was no cost/investment?

Anyway, how many hip defensive skills do Mesmers have exactly (how many’s “so many”) to serve in the use of recharging mantras? Can you list them for us? I’m fascinated.

• Mind Wrack- Blinds with Blinding dissipation
• Cry of Confusion- Blinds
• Diversion- Instant Daze/stun interrupt
• Distortion- Invulnerability
• Decoy- Stealth
• Portal- if you so choose.
• Blink- Teleport
• Mass Invisibility- Stealth
• The Prestige- Stealth
• Illusionary Wave- Knockback to keep melee away.
• Illusionary Leap- For MLG teleport.

Learn your class

And these will serve to cover the 2,75s of charging the mantra? You do know you cannot perform most of these while charging or you cancel the charge?

Uhmm you can stealth Before you charge? 3 of those Options are stealth
DistortionCan Also Cover that too (varies with clones)
You can Also blink while Charging
You can Also potentially Make A CC miss with A shatter while charging.

The only thing that does not work Here is ileap and I wave.

To Sum it up, 95% of what he said can cover a mantra charging

What if the person trying to interrupt you isn’t a total idiot?

Many interrupts are ranged and blinds are easy to clear. This basically brings you down to stealth and distortion. Now, you can certainly use those to charge it, but you have very limited access to them, as well as potentially needing them for other things.

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Fay.2357:

So the combo you’re seeing is greatsword 2 (mirror blade), dodge, mind wrack, greatsword 3 (mind stab).

This does a lot of damage, particularly if you don’t have toughness. The way to avoid this is to dodge immediately upon either seeing the animation of mirror blade, or as soon as you realize you’re taking damage. As you said, it’s an impossible fight against unsuspecting prey. Don’t be unsuspecting prey. When you know there’s a burst zerker mesmer on the other team, always be aware of where they are and be ready to avoid their burst.

I made this just before (for something else) so you can see what Fay is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL5uco1fDWo

Vid is a comparison of Zerker GS burst under Power Block vs Mental Anguish, so the last 8 bursts are the harder hitting. Anyway, you can see the skills used and the damage totals on a lite golem.

So in ideal burst situations, PB hits harder right?

Eh, I don’t think so. A PB interrupt on a full zerk build can net you 2-4k extra damage, which brings them about even, more or less. The difference is ONLY made up in additional interrupts throughout the course of a fight, pulling PB ahead.

However, as any experienced player will know all the difference in a fight can occur in that burst instant. If the target scraped by with a few HP, they can pop their invulns and heals, prolonging the fight and potentially escaping danger altogether. So which is better? Circumstance is everything. You can’t just look at a few numbers and call it :p

But the same goes for mental, not alot of targets will eat your burst like the golem so you dont get the extra dmg multiplier. Unless they have no stun breakers

Well you always get the bonus 15%, that said the whole idea of Mental Anguish is maximizing its potential of burst under Lockdown. So if you can dump the full thing under 1s before a stun breaker/invuln reaction, then you’re golden.

obviously pre-empting the Mesmer is the strongest approach. Popping stability or invuln/blur/evade works really well. But the strongest defense? Weakness, lots and lots of weakness. It’s relatively low investment, shuts out anyone without condi cleanse, and can be reapplied even if it is cleansed :p.

Burst Mesmers worst nightmare :p

I get what you mean tho, but my argument still stands, on the video you posted, PB is almost the same as MA, without the HS damage, and granted you will get the modifier 50% since you Are hitting a golem.

So a very good Interrupt Mesmer will make use and outdamage MA repeatedly if he manages to Chain His interrupts. Like proper Clone positioning for Diversion.

Your argument is wrong. As long as you either bait a stunbreaker first or just execute your burst precisely fast, you’ll get the bonus damage every time. Executed properly, the mirror blade will land an instant after the stun, followed by the shatter. You can do the whole thing in less than half a second.

Here is the thing though, on a first engagment, how would you know how many stun breakers he has, you can bait the first one yes, but how bout the second? the third?

If he has 2 or 3, how many is off CD , how many Isnt? How many is almost off CD?

Unless you can predict it 100% of the time then yeah for sure MA will always outdamage PB.

Doing the burst extremely fast I agree with if you can caught him off guard, but let’s be honest, this rarely happens (depends on what matches you get tho)

On a first engagement, I execute my burst precisely to land it regardless of stunbreakers. It’s not all that hard to land it within .5s.

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Fay.2357:

So the combo you’re seeing is greatsword 2 (mirror blade), dodge, mind wrack, greatsword 3 (mind stab).

This does a lot of damage, particularly if you don’t have toughness. The way to avoid this is to dodge immediately upon either seeing the animation of mirror blade, or as soon as you realize you’re taking damage. As you said, it’s an impossible fight against unsuspecting prey. Don’t be unsuspecting prey. When you know there’s a burst zerker mesmer on the other team, always be aware of where they are and be ready to avoid their burst.

I made this just before (for something else) so you can see what Fay is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL5uco1fDWo

Vid is a comparison of Zerker GS burst under Power Block vs Mental Anguish, so the last 8 bursts are the harder hitting. Anyway, you can see the skills used and the damage totals on a lite golem.

So in ideal burst situations, PB hits harder right?

Eh, I don’t think so. A PB interrupt on a full zerk build can net you 2-4k extra damage, which brings them about even, more or less. The difference is ONLY made up in additional interrupts throughout the course of a fight, pulling PB ahead.

However, as any experienced player will know all the difference in a fight can occur in that burst instant. If the target scraped by with a few HP, they can pop their invulns and heals, prolonging the fight and potentially escaping danger altogether. So which is better? Circumstance is everything. You can’t just look at a few numbers and call it :p

But the same goes for mental, not alot of targets will eat your burst like the golem so you dont get the extra dmg multiplier. Unless they have no stun breakers

Well you always get the bonus 15%, that said the whole idea of Mental Anguish is maximizing its potential of burst under Lockdown. So if you can dump the full thing under 1s before a stun breaker/invuln reaction, then you’re golden.

obviously pre-empting the Mesmer is the strongest approach. Popping stability or invuln/blur/evade works really well. But the strongest defense? Weakness, lots and lots of weakness. It’s relatively low investment, shuts out anyone without condi cleanse, and can be reapplied even if it is cleansed :p.

Burst Mesmers worst nightmare :p

I get what you mean tho, but my argument still stands, on the video you posted, PB is almost the same as MA, without the HS damage, and granted you will get the modifier 50% since you Are hitting a golem.

So a very good Interrupt Mesmer will make use and outdamage MA repeatedly if he manages to Chain His interrupts. Like proper Clone positioning for Diversion.

Your argument is wrong. As long as you either bait a stunbreaker first or just execute your burst precisely fast, you’ll get the bonus damage every time. Executed properly, the mirror blade will land an instant after the stun, followed by the shatter. You can do the whole thing in less than half a second.

Arcaedus.7290:

Fay.2357:

So the combo you’re seeing is greatsword 2 (mirror blade), dodge, mind wrack, greatsword 3 (mind stab).

This does a lot of damage, particularly if you don’t have regardless of your toughness. The way to avoid this is to dodge immediately upon either seeing the animation of mirror blade, or as soon as you realize you’re taking damage. As you said, it’s an impossible fight against unsuspecting prey. Don’t be unsuspecting prey. When you know there’s a burst zerker mesmer on the other team, always be aware of where they are and be ready to avoid their burst.

Fixed that for ya! You would think 3.4k armor would be enough to not be getting hit for 4k/shatter on mind wrack, but it’s not :/ You can’t face-tank a well-set up mind wrack, period.

There is good advice here though; you really have to dodge, block, or invlun to survive those out-of-stealth bursts from a power mesmers. Be aware of that mesmer’s location, and get ready to hop on them as soon as they’re out of stealth/not invulnerable.

Some advice from personal experience: If you move away from where the mesmer is, they’re not going to be able to do a point-blank mirror blade throw, and will likely chase you. If the mesmer is stealthed and nearing the end of their stealth duration, s/he will likely just throw the mirror blade from wherever s/he currently is, keep chasing you, or blink to you to get the burst in. In all three cases you have made the situation slightly more advantageous for yourself. Aside from dodging, move around, constantly keep attacking (negates a +15% damage modifier they could have), and move away from stealthed mesmers to avoid that burst!

Eating a full burst from a burst build isn’t going to feel like a gentle massage, no matter the build. If you’ve got that much toughness, you’ll easily survive it though.

Erasmus.1624:

Embolism.8106:

It’s obvious the OP’s problem is with Confounding Suggestions, not Power Lock (though he doesn’t realise it), so I don’t think this warrants further discussion unless we want to talk about CS instead.

Instant, aimbot effects (much less a hard CC) without a governing resource involve no skill. Instant passives having such a massive sway on combat in general is a different conversation to have.

Mantra of distraction has a 2.75 second channel time. Trying interrupting that next time instead of just complaining.

Slaymeding.9584:

kitten ,totally missed that

“point blank range, and then the projectile has no distance to travel, and hence no travel time or animation to see.”

Thanks for the heads up,though obvious couldnt really comprehend that part.

Yep. That’s important to know though, because it means that the mesmer is right on top of you when this burst is happening, they have to be. Blind grenades will screw it up, or just heavy aoe pressure will deny this pretty effectively and/or get the mesmer killed if they’re not careful.

Slaymeding.9584:

Would love to mash on the elixir S there ever was a mirror blade flying towards me,yet that was non-existent :/

Maybe he was fresh out of a fight and had might stacked all the way from the spatial surge and the next thing i see is a trio of clones to my face.
Im suspecting mirror images and decoy because i cannot recall any GS animations that took place.

Not going to cry “OP” but,well,theres 4 dead due to the shatter after shatter at keep in Nifl and that’ve put the team about 50 points behind in a very quick manner.

Gotta work that Lock On trait it seems,just glad its not THAT common.

Well, the key is that you can get to point blank range, and then the projectile has no distance to travel, and hence no travel time or animation to see. However, there still is a time delay between the first damage occurring and the main body of the burst. If you dodge immediately, you’ll avoid pretty much the whole painful part.

Again though, this is all reliant on you paying attention. If you don’t realize the mesmer is there, you can’t possibly react in time, so you have to be cognizant of that. Taking lock on is also a fantastic way to screw this up, since it relies upon starting in stealth for that surprise attack.

So the combo you’re seeing is greatsword 2 (mirror blade), dodge, mind wrack, greatsword 3 (mind stab).

This does a lot of damage, particularly if you don’t have toughness. The way to avoid this is to dodge immediately upon either seeing the animation of mirror blade, or as soon as you realize you’re taking damage. As you said, it’s an impossible fight against unsuspecting prey. Don’t be unsuspecting prey. When you know there’s a burst zerker mesmer on the other team, always be aware of where they are and be ready to avoid their burst.

The 2 and 3 skills on the scepter are fine and strong. It’s the autoattack that’s the big stinker of the weapon.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Ross Biddle.2367:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Ross Biddle.2367:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Simonoly.4352:

I imagine Confounding Suggestions might be on the radar still for Anet. Wouldn’t be surprised if Blinding Dissipation gets a CD per target like Inepitude at some point.

I think it’s more likely that Mesmer will just see buffs to non-torch off-hands and possibly staff to ‘gently nudge’ players away from the s/t + GS PU.

I could see a nerf to CS but why blinding Dissipation?

Because people don’t like it. Same with CS.

I could see why to nerf CS because it significantly lowers the skill required by mesmer which used to be a high skill profession, but why blinding dissipation? I don’t see this as faceroll at all.

Incidentally a powerful argument for Anet to keep it.

Neither it or blinding dissipation make Mesmer “faceroll” however. This isnt ele, war, or guard we’re talking about. Nevertheless! People don’t like it.

I mean it’s still not ele lvl faceroll but it’s super duper easy to burst people. Stun + burst. Rinse and repeat. Which is why I suggested in another thread ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Nerf-Confounding-Suggestions-1/first#post5595576 ) to nerf CS and make it slightly more of a skillful trait. Especially seeing as it’s a adept trait. I think its potential in the hands of a idiot is a little too much.

Why does everyone think interrupt is the only way to make things skillful? Is every other class not skillful, because they don’t have any interrupt traits?

No, it’s not the only way, and I know that. But it is one way. I’d take any ideas you have to make CS more skillful. It’s just on interrupt was the most obvious and in my opinion the most likely to happen.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Confounding-Suggestions-Suggestion/page/2#post5303095

MrSilver.5269:

Curious to know, because I haven’t been keeping up, if the devs have come to terms with the fact that mesmers are significantly OP right now to the point of being broken?

No, they haven’t. They haven’t because mesmer isn’t significantly OP right now, you’re just significantly wrong. It’s quite an obvious conclusion actually.

It’s also worth noting the maximum reduction obtainable. With permanent alacrity, your new cd is 60% of the original one.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I died to moa. If you’ve got plenty of hp when you get hit, just go offensive and keep attacking, since the moa skills are quite powerful. If you’re low on hp, use skill 5 to disengage for 10 seconds and then come back, it’s that easy.

Honestly, if I get hit with moa, I instantly qualify that mesmer as probably not great. Moa is only taken to rip rampage/lich/other transforms. It’s absolutely worse than the other choices otherwise.

I like these threads though, cause they’re worth a good chuckle. Any good mesmer (any good PvPer) understands that moa is fine and isn’t getting nerfed, so we can all just relax and laugh at threads like this without worrying about more nerfs because of them.

Nineaxis.1826:

Fay.2357:

Illusions drops the cooldown of continuum split, and continuum split is the primary skill that gates everything else that you do. Saying that ‘alacrity already provides cooldown reduction’ is silly. Obviously alacrity provides cooldown reduction, but you want as much as possible.

So the question is what is worth more:

• Illusions for Continuum Split cooldown being 78.5s (down from 90s), and 20% reduced recharge for Phantasm skills, on top of what cooldown reduction alacrity provides
• Domination for 12.5% more damage across the board, 15% more damage from phantasms, and 15/30% more damage from shatters

Some thoughts:

• 11s off Continuum Split would only be majorly relevant if using it on cooldown. Unless I’m mistaken, the main purpose of using it would be to get two Time Warps (+some additional skills) off. After the second, it goes on a 180s cooldown. How many PvE encounters last long enough for Time Warp to come back up, even with alacrity? How many encounters would make use of multiple Continuum Splits?
• How much does the phantasm skill cooldown reduction contribute to your skill rotation? Over the beta weekend, running Dom/Duel/Chrono, the weapon swap cooldown was the time gate I was hitting on summoning additional phantasms, not the recharge on skills. Is the extra cooldown reduction, on top of alacrity, for phantasm summoning skills necessary?

Nope, you’re using CS basically off cooldown. You don’t double cast time warp, because that wastes it. You use CS to reduce the effective cooldown of time warp to the cooldown of CS, namely forty five seconds. At that point in time you also doublecast all the rest of your wells for alacrity and quickness upkeep.

Nineaxis.1826:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

If you mean for dungeons/fractals/raids then probably something of the sort like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8dncfCtqh9fCmfCUrhlVjqcDGhAo+Yj2pFd6OjrD-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9Biq+DZKxe4EAAwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFOg1Xf91Xf9Ge4hHe4hHDQeA-e

Domination might be better than dueling we have to wait and see. You can take shield if you need more personal survive ability or more stuns or more quickness. You can take pistol if your phantasms will stay alive longer that way. You can go with Well of Precognition if your team needs more survivability. etc etc

Is there a strong reason for Illusions being mandatory for a DPS-focused build? Seems like the main thing it provides is cooldown reductions, which Chrono brings passively through alacrity (and not just for you, but the whole party). Both dueling and domination provide damage buffs that don’t seem worth dropping, while the benefits of the Illusions traits can be gotten elsewhere:

- Illusionary Retribution: doesn’t really matter.
- Persistence of Memory: alacrity already provides cooldown reduction
- Illusionist’s Celerity: alacrity already provides cooldown reduction
- Phantasmal Haste: Domination gives +15% damage plus 12.5% from Vulnerability, which beats 20% more from faster attacking.
- Master of Misdirection: alacrity already provides cooldown reduction
- Master of Fragmentation: buffs Mind Wrack crit chance by 10%, while Domination buffs its damage by 15 or 30%. Other effects are underwhelming in most PvE situations

To me at least, it seems like Domination/Dueling/Chrono makes for a stronger PvE DPS build – something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs8ancfCtfi9fCuqBUrhFVjiMAKgirsDKhBoOZn2qF-TxBBABYt/o8AgTCgh6FGV9nyUiFwDA4MlgBAOAGuwR4g1Xf91Xf9Ge4hHe4hLDg+YA-e

Illusions drops the cooldown of continuum split, and continuum split is the primary skill that gates everything else that you do. Saying that ‘alacrity already provides cooldown reduction’ is silly. Obviously alacrity provides cooldown reduction, but you want as much as possible.

Embolism.8106:

I got quite a few “nice Mesmer bunker” comments when I played Condi Chrono, which is funny as IMO it’s much stronger than the typical Mesmer Condi that garners accusations of “condi cancer”.

You would think the constant blocking and blurring while slapping everyone with Confusion and Torment would be more frustrating to fight against, but people seem to appreciate that I’m standing there and taking it rather than teleporting away? I don’t know.

Funny, I just got people cursing at me, ah well.

Because even a perfect shatter rotation will do drastically less dps than just letting your phantasms attack instead of shattering them.

All game types except PvE, don’t bring a shatter mesmer into a dungeon.

Lol, complaining about rangers now, are we?

Based on the nature of your complaints, I can confidently say that no matter how hard condition mesmer gets nerfed…you’ll still get dumpstered by them.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Xyonon.3987:

You can make sound every idea bad if you act like this …

They could buff it to 2 sec + 1 sec per illusion and give the distortion share trait 2 sec too.

I personally don’t think that distortion is in urge need of a buff, altough it wouldn’t be op and it would increase the usage of the distortion share trait, since 1 sec is reaaaally short.

They would be careless to touch the shatter. 4 seconds is already 1 second over most invulnerability in the game. Not only this but why on earth would you want to uncontrollably make it so you can’t control a capture point for half of its decapture time when you shatter with no clones out.

Running the inspiration trait at all is considered a bad idea. Your upgrade would forcibly decap the point by 50% whenever you distort in pvp. Don’t exacerbate the situation where it is. Mesmers who distort when they have the inspiration line will already forcibly decapture the point by 25%

I assume this was nor your intent. But any buffing of either is immensely rude to mesmers in spvp.

Personally I’d make protected phantasms the minor, then buff inspiring distortion and make it the major. Inspiration is a fantastic line for a lot of reasons, but if you happen to need distortion while on a point, it’s good for a guaranteed 25%-50% decap depending on location.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Embolism.8106:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Are you sure about fury? Because you don’t seem to be.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/What-crit-chance-do-the-illusions-have/first#post85481

Nothing had changed in three years to my knowledge.

Did Fury used to give precision? Because that’s what that post seems to be relying on. As Embolism says, “any boons that change your stats directly…will indirectly boost your Illusions too.”
But Fury doesn’t change your stats directly, it changes your crit chance. Just like Sigil of Accuracy, Fury as it is right now shouldn’t have any impact on your phantasm’s crit chance.

In practice, I’ve found this to be true: my iDuelist stacks up the average bleeds that it’s expected to not counting my personal Fury.

No it didn’t, I just didn’t test it by getting 80% crit chance then seeing if Illusions can still fail to crit while I have Fury. I did that later and it turns out they could, so I was wrong.

This isn’t meta battle, this isn’t name dropping. This is me saying that the statement was made about competence and I trust the competence of these individuals over Ross. Or Fay or Alpha. No amount of theorycrafting will replace practical experience at high tournament levels.

While I agree 100% on practical experience, I don’t agree about high tournament levels. Though maybe I would if I had the time and opportunity to enter them (bonus points for picking up the actual, subtle suggestion there).

Interestingly enough, everybody has access to practical experience, and you never have to enter a tournament to gain access to it

I see, where does your practical experience come from then? Learning every chess move by heart will not make you a Chessmaster. This is a case of qualia, some practical experience must be experienced not read about.

Poor choice of example. Theoretically being able to learn every single chess move by heart would absolutely make you a Grandmaster, as it would allow you to fully analyse any match. Obviously pedantic, but as long as we’re playing that way, I figure it’ll fit right in.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Embolism.8106:

I said that, not Ross. And I was wrong about Fury because it doesn’t increase your Precision.

That was less than a month post-release, by the way.

I can’t keep track of who is who I am on a phone. Increases the size of the text only makes things above the text box visible.

You can probably notice posting dates though. Citing a 3 year old post as ‘being unsure about a mechanic’ definitely falls into the realm of ‘absurd arguments that can be laughed at’.

You have never proven your merit in PvP or WvW as long as I have been a member of this forum. What you gave proven is your ability to perform reductio ad absurdum. This post was one of your more blantant examples.

chuckles

AlphatheWhite.9351:

frifox.5283:

Math can tell only so much. Granted, the more variables your math accounts for the clearer picture you will get but almost always it’s still just not enough. There are enough serious flaws with going condi that Power build is the only realistic option left…. for now.

Except my point is that I seem to be the only one who has done any math on condi mes at all since the June patch, and what I did do was surprisingly suggestive. And yet, everyone and their dog jumps on the power train every kitten time, when I guarantee almost none of them could point you to any math or practical testing to show that they are right.
Worse, Chronomancer changes everything, and there’s no way anyone has done all the math or testing required to count condi out on this.

Your math was also done before DD got nerfed into the ground, gotta remember that.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Embolism.8106:

I said that, not Ross. And I was wrong about Fury because it doesn’t increase your Precision.

That was less than a month post-release, by the way.

I can’t keep track of who is who I am on a phone. Increases the size of the text only makes things above the text box visible.

You can probably notice posting dates though. Citing a 3 year old post as ‘being unsure about a mechanic’ definitely falls into the realm of ‘absurd arguments that can be laughed at’.

I think I’ve got this figured out! We’re all just misunderstanding the op. They’re actually complaining that they got dunked by a sinister engie on a Mesmer.

This is the obvious logical conclusion, since complaining about sinister Mesmer is clearly absurd.

We heal as one is better if you use ether feast with no illusions out.

If you get illusions out, ether feast scales higher on healing power and heals for base 15% more.

There are several healing skills that Anet purposefully neglected to put into a skill category. This was usually done because they felt the skills were already balanced well as-is, and adding the additional trappings of traits would introduce imbalance.

Ether feast is a strong and competitive heal just as it is. It’s one of the highest scaling heals in the game, has one of the highest base heal values, and is on a reasonable cooldown. There’s no need for it to be affected by traits.

Wish granted! Distortion now lasts 4 seconds!

You can thank me later.

@Chrolo: If you could reset CS with signet of illusions, you could do a continuous loop of resets, without ever stopping.

Elite skills tend to have longer cast times. If you haven’t fully finished the aftercast by the time CS ends, it won’t reset it. You can help avoid this by using CS halfway through the cast time of the skill.

Firelysm.4967:

Sinister stats are issue and need urgent unbalance.

I agree, they’re currently far too balance and are in desperate need of being unbalanced.

Daniel Handler.4816:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

adelaide.6213:

Fay.2357:

WvW roaming: Split. Why? Because this is the one aspect of the game that base Mesmer is actually good at.

It’s not that Chronomancer is overwhelmingly better than base Mesmer, it’s that base Mesmer just sucks.

Could you link or detail a build that would not be arguably improved by swapping out a trait line with Chrono?

I personally would always use chrono just because of the QoL movespeed while roaming.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhQQNArfWlsnhK0YnbwRNwtGLvGkZHG+IKnQvjGaAyZTA-TFyCABAcIAU4JFs3+DIfCFNIYp87S1f0TfxYKBDAgAMzysMnZ6W36W3G6QH6QH6QbmzcmzcmzsQALWDA-w

Again you forget you to use desperate decoy >.<
This time its because you must remember neither phantasm you have is multi hit, so making them crit is not a necessity.
The synergy between DD and PU is not to be missed.

In fact that synergy is so good it has become meta in pvp. As DD + PU + Runes of The Vampirism means every minute any BS +HS from a thief will make you stealth and invuln.

I can’t speak for alpha, but I personally avoid taking desperate decoy no matter what. I want direct control over my stealth/interruptions. I’ve been killed more than once by an ill-times desperate decoy proc.