Guild Wars 2

Ithilwen.1529:

Pyro, I shouldn’t need to remind you that iDefender mitigates damage and is as good a shatter fodder as anything else.

Clones and Phants both work for shatter and most players are dumb enough to keep hitting into blocks.

So, yes, stacking iDefender was actually working fairly well for me.

Yeah, but you’re complaining about how it won’t bring out more than 1 iDefender at a time? This is absurd for multiple reasons. Let’s go through them, shall we?

Firstly, if your defender hasn’t died in the 25 (20 traited) seconds since it was last summoned, summoning another one is going to be pure wasted space that could instead be taken up by something more useful, like a damage phantasm or the other utility phantasm: pDisenchanter.

Secondly, spawning 2 defenders does absolutely nothing for you. The buffs don’t stack, so all you’re doing is wasting a fairly long cooldown to summon a phantasm that could just get cleaved down. Essentially, it’s a criminal waste of your resources. If you have 2 defenders up at the same time and they both get hit by strong cleave, they’ll both die and leave you with no mitigation from that source. If you instead save the second one and bring it out after the first was cleaved down, now you’ve extended the duration of your mitigation.

Basically, there’s absolutely no reason to ever want more than 1 pDefender out at any given time. Having the ability to bring another one out immediately is fantastic, but actually bringing 2 out concurrently is absolutely nothing but poor play, and complaining about being unable to do so is…special.

Ithilwen.1529:

Mental Defense won’t proc more than one iDefender. That basically guts my defensive strategy.

This wasn’t the case before. Looks like an undocumented nerf.

If your defensive strategy revolves around stacking a phantasm that gains in absolutely no way, shape, or form from being stacked, I’ve got bad news for you.

Mikkel.8427:

Carrion Amulet

Why would you do that?

Mikkel.8427:

Scavenging Rune

Meh. If you’re going that route, undead is better anyway.

Mikkel.8427:

Intelligence Sigils

Why on earth would you do that?

Just a quick note: If you want to use ‘+’ in an equation, make sure you put a space before and after it.

Yeah, this is not a new bug, it’s existed for a long time. It’s more prevalent in PvE than in PvP, but it happens in PvP too. Immobilizing/crippling them generally will give a 100% chance to knockback, as your testing discovered.

Mirmil.5074:

So when the cast is treated as an interruption?

When you interrupt something.

Mirmil.5074:

Does your opponent has to be in the middle of casting animation ?

This is, indeed, when you’re able to interrupt something.

Mirmil.5074:

Will it work as an opener of the combat when technically you are not interrupting anything?

So you’re asking whether an on-interrupt proc will work if you don’t interrupt anything?

Interrupts require a thing to interrupt. If you just randomly hit someone with a daze, you’re not interrupting them.

I could probably make a matlab code to model it sometime if I get bored.

General structure would be something along the line of making a separate function for each state (staff clone, pistol phant, autoattacks in staff, etc) that would take inputs of stats and duration of the effect. Then you could basically either sit down and come up with different rotations to execute them in or figure out a way to randomize different rotations and then brute force through it.

Something to note is that I believe all of those numbers are significantly less than the similarly estimated numbers in a power build. Iirc, assuming 3 phantasm permanent uptime and constant autoattacks nets you around 16k dps.

Unfortunately, neither of these estimations are even remotely feasible in most situations. Phantasms get squishes constantly, and the ramp up time is a very significant detriment.

All things considered, I feel that a staff clone-based build is probably more reliable even given the problem of staff autos bouncing to allies instead of enemies. Since you can put up 3 clones immediately, as well as easily sustain them through boss cleaves, that aspect beats out pistol builds in a realistic situation.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Fay.2357:

This was more of a potentially exploitable issue before the patch. This can (theoretically) get you 2s reflect on kitten cooldown, so 2s out of 7s reflecting. This is significantly higher than just casting it untraited.

However, casting it traited gives you 4s reflect on a 12s cooldown. This is a 25% uptime compared to 28% uptime on stow-canceling it, in addition to losing the heal. The additional 3% is not a good trade off for losing the heal and having to deal with stow canceling, so I don’t really see it as an issue.

If traiting it boosts the reflect to 4s, why wouldn’t traiting it and stow-cancelling give you 4s out of 7s reflecting?

The second reflect activation only occurs upon successful completion of the skill channel.

Also, I mathed a bit wrong. Traited heal is 4s reflect on a 14 second cycle, so a nearly identical 28% uptime plus the heal.

This was more of a potentially exploitable issue before the patch. This can (theoretically) get you 2s reflect on kitten cooldown, so 2s out of 7s reflecting. This is significantly higher than just casting it untraited.

However, casting it traited gives you 4s reflect on a 12s cooldown. This is a 25% uptime compared to 28% uptime on stow-canceling it, in addition to losing the heal. The additional 3% is not a good trade off for losing the heal and having to deal with stow canceling, so I don’t really see it as an issue.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Problem is ppl could abuse such a thing to blacklist “bad” players aswel, or atleast ppl u dont want to play with.

Which would end up ‘exploiting’ your way to only good teams.

This is really only an issue because the entire GW2 pvp community can fit inside a thimble. That being said, it is an issue, and is why they won’t implement something like this.

Misguided.5139:

Sorry to pull up an old thread, but I’m really liking scepter/torch on my Mesmer and I have a question on this power. Is the secret to hitting multiple targets simply targeting the one in the back or is there more to it than that? It seems inconsistent, but it’s hard to tell in a fight with stuff moving around.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Confusing images draws a line directly from you to your target. It hits everything that the line passes through, up to 5 at a time.

Morfedel.4165:

Morfedel.4165:

Silverkey.2078:

To see if this is on purpose, how does the longbow on ranger behave with “Lead the Wind” or warrior with “Dual Wielding” since the wording is similar?

That’s a good question. Has anyone checked these two, because the wording IS similar. The answer to that question will most likely verify what the devs had in mind for this one.

Or, of course, a dev could stop by and tell us whether its Working as Intended, or Bugged, so we can know whether or not we need to emotionally prepare ourselves for a nerf or not lol

I just had a friend with a warrior try out Dual Wielding. It appears it functions the same way, according to him; if so, then it may actually be that this is performing as intended.

anyone have any counter evidence?

Just tested the warrior trait dual wielding. It also affects all actions, including stomps. It does not affect ressing though, and I think that malicious sorcery won’t either. There’s a momentary bar that pops up when you begin a res, and it probably affects that, but the actual res speed is locked in.

Clones do no damage unless they apply conditions with their attacks, in which case it is based off of your personal condition damage and duration.

Phantasms do damage based off of the exact stats as normal damage from you. Phantasms inherit all basic stats from you with the exception of vitality. This means they inherit your power (so might on you affects them, but might on them does not), your precision (but not your critical chance, so fury on you does not affect them), and your ferocity.

Well, something to remember is that neither force, nor slaying, nor accuracy transfer their effects to your phantasms, so it’s possible the optimal choice might be bloodlust + battle/strength.

HandsomeGentleman.9576:

Are people seriously asking condi mesmer to be buffed?

Seeing as condie Mesmer is rather weak in every situation outside of a duel or solo roaming in wvw…yes, obviously. Let me guess though, you’re probably going to make a passionate rebuttal argument about how overpowered condie Mesmer is because you can’t beat it in a duel on your ‘insert non-dueling build here’.

DHawk.2687:

I know it’s dumb, but anet made countless traits GM that aren’t even worth a minor state
giving the bounce to a master trait or lower will just result in mesmer being called op again
because we all know anet won’t adjust the traits in the near future imho if you add it back in, make it a GM trait and maybe add something like increased radius on GS#3

Make it part of imagined burden, that way you can choose to boost gs mirror blade burst (and might want to add in something like the increased radius too) or interrupt damage or massive mind wrack damage, but not multiple.

Centaur runes + low cooldown heal = permaswiftness with no need for signet of inspiration or anything at all. If you choose to go for centaur runes, you’re all set.

Carighan.6758:

Fay.2357:

With a scepter equipped, malicious sorcery not only causes scepter attacks to increase in speed by 15%, but in fact causes EVERYTHING to increase in speed by 15%.

Eh, yes?

I mean not to criticize Pyro, but why would you touch that trait with an 11-foot pole if this weren’t the case? That’s what it advertises, “15% attack speed while having a scepter equipped” (not “With scepter attacks”), is consistent with how other traits work, and well, is the whole selling point.

Ofc, granted, some of the things you mention are a bit tricky to classify as attacks, but even stomping technically is.

Happy to see that trait is fixed. Actually feels like a GM trait now.

I’m not debating the underwhelmingness of the trait in normal form, but to think that the scepter trait is supposed to increase attack speed for everything is absurd bordering on delusional. Yes, I know we’ve gotten some nice things…but this is ridiculous.

Embolism.8106:

Again do we actually know this isn’t intended? We’ve been talking about it in these forums for a bit so (assuming they read the forums) they should be aware of this. And really, +15% to Ether Bolt’s attack speed is really crappy for a GM trait.

The trait obviously is intended to increase the speed at which scepter skills execute. The trait obviously is not intended to increase the global speed at which all actions execute. This is easily deduced by the application of just a bit of logic and common sense. Now, I know that applying common sense to the dev team is always a bit of a risky proposition, but I’m pretty sure it works in this case.

messiah.1908:

Silverkey.2078:

@Windwalker
Would you now recommend malicious over Ineptitude for PvP condi build?

me no. the blind and confusion combination is just so needed in pvp for 20% scepter cd and 15% speed attack (the AA doest changed the clone rate)

idk, I’ve been liking my quick stomps…

Levetty.1279:

kitten , you aren’t supposed to bring attention to this.

I don’t want this to be the cause of more nerfs down the line, then they find this out and fix it and leave the other nerfs.

Zephyra.4709:

I tried out torment runes on mesmer. It is one big bucket of aids, ready to sprinkle onto the faces of salty little orphans. In other words.. I’m having my laughs killing players with this cheesy, dirty build but as others have stated already – little to no movement speed/swiftness and you better be on your toes if you need to break out of a stun etc which shouldn’t be too hard since you inflict cancer anyway on your F1-F4 skills.

I also tried out torment runes on my thief. More risky, maybe I’m just below average anyway but it’s still fun, imo.

Torment runes are really only particularly effective against opponents with no condition removal. Mesmer torment application is such long duration that adding even more duration only makes a difference if the target has no cleanses, otherwise it gets removed before the excess duration matter. You’ll certainly faceroll bad players, but it won’t be as effective against good mesmers as other runes would be.

Generally speaking, 6-8 seconds is the longest period of time you can expect a condition to persist on someone that has condie cleanse/knows what they’re doing. Past that, it’s better to stack higher condition damage or try to apply a greater range of conditions.

Prepare yourselves folks, cause this one’s a doozy.

With a scepter equipped, malicious sorcery not only causes scepter attacks to increase in speed by 15%, but in fact causes EVERYTHING to increase in speed by 15%.

Including, but not limited to, offhand attacks, heals, mantra charging, mass invis, and stomping.

Tested and confirmed by frame counting in premier.

phokus.8934:

Anyone else notice that Power Lock now has an 5 second ICD?

Power lock has a 5 second cooldown, not an internal cooldown, and this is how it always has been.

Very consistent for me. Equip inspiration, toss on the cleanse mantra, and use any heal.

Jace al Thor.6745:

Simonoly.4352:

I can confirm this. If you have Mender’s Purity and use Power Return, an uncharged Mantra of Resolve will go on full cooldown.

Pretty nasty bug this one.

Mantra of distraction as well

I can’t replicate MoD.

As far as I can tell, the bug is with mender’s purity, it’s not related to the heal mantra. If you activate a heal with mender’s purity equipped, it will put mantra of resolve on the full cooldown.

apharma.3741:

Yeah sorry, my bad

http://gw2dungeons.net/Records

There are some thieves and guards kicking around just about.

Edit: I do know exactly what I’m talking about. I am more than aware what mesmer is there for, portal. The only thing that makes record runs faster at this point in time is time saved between mandatory fights. For that reason alone mesmer is top now with portal.

Additionally for the fractal records there are 6 done with guards and 5 done with mesmers. Across all dungeons guards are there for 13 while mesmers for 27.

Here’s the problem.

In dungeons, if the mesmer class consisted entirely of portal, time warp, and the ability to run forwards, they’d still be guaranteed a spot in most speedrun parties. The truth is, in most speedruns that’s pretty much all they contribute to the party. The damage is awful, you don’t really need other utility since eles/guards/warriors do it all, aaaand that’s it.

Instead of recognizing that as a bit of a problem, you and Linnael are attempting to argue that being a glorified troop transport is just fine and dandy, and nothing needs to change. In fact, we should be thankful that we’re glorified troop transports, just look at necros. They have no troop transporting ability and they’re sad because of it.

I have no idea who Linnael is, but I generally respect your posts, and seeing you making such an infantile argument disappoints me.

Daniel Handler.4816:

We also have an entire spec coming that is essentially devoted to PvE. I think they saw lowering the damage from mantras as a temporary issue.

Uh.

Allmywat.jpg

Nachyochez.9758:

Hopefully ANet will see what Mantras look like now, and take measures to put them back to usefulness; ie: bring back the Bug that turned out to be a massive QoL improvement, and then tweak base recharges accordingly!

Dream on…

Since when has the balance team actually taken a reasonable look at changes with regards to possibly poor decisions for mesmers? Just reroll to ele or warrior and enjoy doing 2x the damage with .1x the effort.

Linnael.1069:

Newsflash mesmer is mandatory on every single WR speedrun team already.

It’s a pvp nerf. If you wanna complain about it not even being a problem in pvp thats fine, but lets be real here complaining about mesmer’s PvE state is flat out ridiculous.

Haha, funny joke. Have you even watched those speed runs? Half the time the Mesmer doesn’t even attack the boss, they just drop a portal, pick up an fgs, and wait for the door to open so that they can portal the eles to the next boss. Trying to argue that Mesmer is in a good spot in pve just makes you look exceedingly foolish.

Priorities for ascended are as follows

1. Trinkets: These are easy to get from fractals/guild missions/laurels/etc. You can easily have a set of trinkets for every gear stat that you need
2. Weapons: These, while expensive and time-consuming to craft, provide a very significant bonus to your stats and should be your second priority. If possible, craft whatever sets/stats you need for these before you move to the next stp
3. Armor: Don’t do this. Like actually, this is a total waste of your time and money. The only possible reason to craft ascended armor is if you absolutely can not live without the extra 5 agony infusion slots.

Undead are a great, effective, and extremely cheap alternative.

ASP.8093:

Implicitly when something is dismissed as “anecdotal,” it’s really because it’s a bad anecdote.

That’s what people are saying here: not just that it’s a limited sample but that it’s a poor choice of sample. Since it’s a single hotjoin screenshot on what’s probably a mesmer daily day, with one not-very-balanced team dunking on another, on a map that a lot of players struggle with and where it’s easy to get snowballed if the enemy team is more coordinated than yours.

There’s no such thing as a good anecdote, that’s entirely faulty reasoning. Enough anecdotes put together in a meaningful way become data, but each individual anecdote has no meaning on its own.

As anet has stated countless times, only one elite specialization per class will be released in HoT.

Also, before you ask, only one new weapon will be unlocked for each class per elite specialization.

Xenon.4537:

Condi mesmer is strong in pvp because their main damage comes from “conditional” conditions.

Confusion: more damage to players because they cast often.
Torment: more damage to players because they move often.

In pve though… condi mesmer is terrible because NPCs simply don’t proc the higher damage, and there’s not enough bleed or burning to compensate. Also it takes up to 10 seconds to “ramp up” condi dps in pve. Mobs are usually dead by then.

Did you perhaps post this in the wrong thread?

A pure matchup between a good thief and a good Mesmer is still very even, but the dynamic has changed so that thief doesn’t hardcounter Mesmer in fights anymore. Mesmer has gained access to more close range defense and can spec for either more sustain or drastically increased evasiveness/manouverability.

This doesn’t mean that Mesmer just dominates the thief vs Mesmer matchup. What it means is that Mesmer can still perform its role on a team even if a thief is chasing it. That’s the key of what made thieves a hardcounter prepatch. The pure matchup was still fairly balanced, but you had to devote your entire attention to not getting eaten by them. Now you can avoid the thief while still providing the heavy damage that you’re on the team to do.

Xtinct.7031:

Kusa.6438:

You obviously haven’t fought a Good condi thief yet.
Right now that’s mesmer hard counter… and it’s pretty much a one sided fight. Stop roaming and go do some real dueling in OS for a bit.

You seem to forget, even a good condi thief has to be revealed to apply condi dmg. This does not apply to a condi mesmer.

You seem to forget, the patch removed all clone death builds from the game. Please try and keep with the times…

eldenbri.1059:

I know that they said on the live stream that alacrity meant that you got 1 second extra cooldown for 3 seconds. But they also said that alacrity would cancel chill. So the chill description in the wiki (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled) says:

While chilled, skill cooldowns additionally progress at a 66% slower rate; i.e. for every 3 seconds chilled, only 1 second of cooldown will have expired.

So it seems like chill is creating a 2-second penalty in 3 seconds of elapsed time, so it feels like alacrity would need to create a 2-second bonus in 3 seconds of elapsed time to counter chill.

Thx for helping me try to get my head around this – it seems like it should be a simple concept but dividing the alacrity duration by 3 to find the recharge reduction just isn’t clicking for me.

We had some very extensive and math intensive threads about this a long time ago, if you want to dig them up. The ultimate conclusion was ‘we have no idea how they actually coded it, we have no idea if the people that coded it understand math, or understand math partially, or just did something random, and ultimately we’ll just have to wait and see.’

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Except it’s not really 4 eles +1 mes vs 5 eles, is it?
Skips are kind of a big deal to speedrunners, so they’re gonna have a thief in the mix there.
You don’t have to be more valuable than another ele…just more valuable than a thief.

Respec into PU, toss on torch, drop a portal, instant skip. Speedruns rarely use a thief for skips. They more commonly just drop an FGS for the mesmer, the mesmer drops a portal and then hauls off to the next fight as soon as the door opens.

Edit: I missed your point. 5 eles with FGS can still move pretty fast though, so the question becomes whether the additional ele outweighs the increased speed of the mesmer porting.

If you want to run condie PU, you should definitely use rabid. For power interrupt, zerker is probably the best choice, considering the new grandmaster minor trait we have in dueling.

As for power vs condie, that depends very much on what you’re doing. From a WvW solo roaming perspective, condie wins, as it always has. From a party perspective…it depends. Both condie and power builds have their own place in a team, so it just depends on where your place is.

Sounds like lag to me.

MrKahwk.9524:

Fay.2357:

And I haven’t gotten a single match with more than 2 mesmers on a team at all.

Hooray, I can give meaningless anecdotal evidence too!

It’s not only ONE experience, everyone can tell you about how mesmer population skyrocketed ever since the last patch. I find it funny how people always try to find any kind of’’evidence’’ to disprove a fact. Fact is; mesmer is overpowered. And if you say otherwise you are probably maining mesmer yourself and don’t want to leave the OP train or you don’t play pvp at all.

Ooh, I can play the ‘say unsubstantiated things and call them fact’ game too!

Fact is, Mesmer is perfectly balanced right now. And if you say otherwise, you’re probably just getting killed all the time and are coming to the forums to whine instead of l2p.

There’s only 2 ways to give alacrity to teammates right now. One is the well, and the other is the random bouncing projectile that iCaptainamerica will use. Suffice to say it’ll be pretty rare.

And I haven’t gotten a single match with more than 2 mesmers on a team at all.

Hooray, I can give meaningless anecdotal evidence too!

All invites are up to date.

Drensky.9567, you have full guild memberships.

Choppy.4183:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

tl;dr: Expecting your profession to provide possibility to win 1 v X is bad to me.

This. Especially when he already qualified the opponents as competent.

Well, a couple things.

First, consider that competence is necessarily a relative measure. When I say ‘competent’, I’m not saying they’re as good as me. Now and then that happens, but those encounters are rather substantially more rare. Competent is more a reflection on relative competence than absolute competence.

Additionally, competence shows up in different ways. I call folks competent in wvw if they’re able to coordinate their attacks to hit me, not suicide on confusion and torment, and be capable of utilizing their mobility to stick to me unless I really burn cooldowns to juke for a disengage. Those 3 qualities together are fairly rare and will make an outnumbered fight substantially more difficult immediately. What those don’t necessarily include are any grasp of tactics.

So yes, if a group of 5 or 6 folks stick together, use their condie clears effectively, and coordinate attacks when I de-stealth, I won’t be able to touch them. However, that’s an inefficient way of actually killing a PU mes, especially if there’s a lot of opportunities to LoS. What usually ends up happening is the group will spread out to cover more ground. When spread out, certain members of the group will be more vulnerable to bursting, and so I’ll execute a burst on them. Stomping is still a bit iffy if the group isn’t totally devoid of tactical thought, but can be done on non-thief/ele/Mesmer.

What PU does for me is it allows me to be slippery enough that the group feels the need to spread out and split up. It allows me to play hide and seek long enough to make them mad, and mad people make mistakes and overextend. I can capitalize on mistakes and overextension even against competent players, and come out with kills.

echo.2053:

pu isn’t needed, its just a crutch for bad players to lean on. between blocks, blinks, utilities blinds on shatter, position awareness… you shouldnt need added stealth..

you might as well just be a p/d teef

You obviously didn’t read a single thing past the 2 letters ‘P’ and ‘U’.

PU is necessary to properly maintain 1vx where x>3. It’s not necessary for smaller fights, but since 1v3+ happen very often in WvW, PU is necessary to ensure that you can engage into any situation.

messiah.1908:

I just hate pu and I rarely use more than 3 sec stealth unless I disengage
And 1vx more than 3 is hard even with pu unless you just troll and not go for the kill or you face bad players

Well, in 1vx vs more than three is certainly hard even with PU, but PU gives you the survivability to last in the fight long enough to try and spread them out, or pick off a person when they make a mistake. Without it you either have to disengage fast or you die.

messiah.1908:

try this
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNArfWlsnh20YjawMNwtGLvGk5KmRNRDQObSZC6d0A-T1hFABAcCAaR9nmU+x7TA0HA8+DIfIAwSJIpAgYsF-w

you dont need pu
you have 4 reflect skills so ranger/necro etc cant hurst you much
you got stability on demand so no warrior or thieves can stun you
in wvw roaming you are god (not versus guard though)

PU is actually extremely important for surviving in outnumbered fights with a couple competent thieves. I was running BD before, and it works fantastically for dueling and 1v2s, but once you get past that, it’s very risky. BD is still better against the average WvW folks, but now and then you’ll hit a good thief tailing a group, and that’s incredibly difficult to survive without PU.