Guild Wars 2

They should just remove the clone generation and have the auto attack apply poison, confusion or weakness in a similar manner to winds of chaos.

shimmerless.4560:

Two things I’ve noticed…

Illusionary Elasticity still has no effect on the WoC used by clones;

Blurred Inscriptions has no effect on the reflection provided by Masterful Reflection.

I’m still in shock at how Illusionary Elasticity has not been fixed for so long. The staff is our only (semi) reliable condition weapon and this is a major trait that would pretty much define the weapons existence.

It must have been thought of before but what if the trait “shrug it off” was changed to remove one condition every ten seconds. It could even scale with adrenaline levels to a max of three conditions removed .

I feel that if this change was made our condition removal would change from abysmal to fair enough while still being behind every other class.

Thoughts?

Transferring to anvil rock is the best decision anyone can make in this game. The map chat in the hotm there finally gave me my 60$ worth of fun…

These are more fun than the game

Bump for the sake of engineers. With the last patch kit refinement has an invisible global cooldown for skills that already had invisible cool downs.

The problems with condition mesmers can be summed up with these points.

Condition application – The condition application for this class is possibly one of the worst in the game when looking at the core weapon skills. The staff is our best condition weapon yet it’s auto attack comes with a one in three chance of failing (apply vulnerability), with a full set of staff clones and a target that never dodges or removes conditions it takes awhile to see more than 6 bleed stacks.

Ever since confusion was removed from the scepter auto attack in beta, the clones generated from this weapon would overwrite the more useful staff clones that apply conditions and the sword clones that stack vulnerability and remove boons. At times it feels like the scepter is working against the player.

Phantoms – The only phantom that applies conditions by default is the phantasmal mage and its damage and condition application falls behind that of every other weapon based phantom regardless of the build.

Build diversity – There is only one way to get semi reliable condition application and that is for the mesmer players to limit their build options to just using the rabid amulet and taking the trait sharper images. With the current weapon skills and traits, builds that use shaman, carrion and rampager’s suffer from a lack of condition application and damage.

Traits – The trait deceptive evasion is good for most mesmer builds but because of its tendency to summon clones on the nearest target both shatter and condition builds have problems with it. For condition mesmers our condition application comes from our illusions with clones summed from this trait attacking random AI it cuts out a large portion of our damage. As for shatter mesmers its not as bad since mind wrack is aoe but it still hurts to have illusions shatter away from the intended target. Another trait that’s causing problems is illusionary elasticity the bounce from this trait is still not working for illusions and if it worked would solve most of the problems with condition application by helping staff clones and the phantasmal mage.

I am using the trait “rending attacks” so felines can apply bleeding and the trait “expertise training” to increase their condition damage. With the increased condition damage from “expertise training” I am seeing sixty damage per bleed from my pets. The problem here is that I don’t see this condition damage from pets being modified by the other traits/skills that should affect it.

The bleed damage does not seem to increase with the pet attribute bonus from the beast mastery trait line, the stat increase from the trait “masters bond” or increase with might stacks from “rampage as one” and the sword auto attack.

I haven’t tested this in depth yet so I may be wrong in some parts but from what I have seen these modifiers are not working to increase pets condition damage.

I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced these bugs or if the devs have mentioned them being fixed in the future.

condition mesmers are still bad in comparison to other classes condition builds and is not able to match the reliability of shatter builds.

Condition application – The condition application for this class is possibly one of the worst in the game when looking at the core weapon skills. The staff is our best condition weapon yet it’s auto attack comes with a one in three chance of failing (apply vulnerability), with a full set of staff clones and a target that never dodges or removes conditions it takes forever to see more than 6 bleed stacks.

Ever since confusion was removed from the scepter auto attack in beta, the clones generated from this weapon would over write the more useful staff clones that apply conditions and the sword clones that stack vulnerability and remove boons. At times it feels like the scepter is working against the player.

Phantoms – The only phantom that applies conditions by default is the phantasmal mage and its damage and condition application falls behind that of every other weapon based phantom regardless of the build.

Build diversity – There is only one way to get semi reliable condition application and that is for the mesmer players to limit their build options to just using the rabid amulet and taking the trait sharper images. With the current weapon skills and traits, builds that use shaman, carrion and rampager’s suffer from a lack of condition application and damage.

Traits – The trait deceptive evasion is good for most mesmer builds but because of its tendency to summon clones on the nearest target both shatter and condition builds have problems with it. For condition mesmers our condition application comes from our illusions with clones summed from this trait attacking random AI it cuts out a large portion of our damage. As for shatter mesmers its not as bad since mind wrack is aoe but it still hurts to have illusions shatter away from the intended target. Another trait that’s causing problems is illusionary elasticity the bounce from this trait is still not working for illusions and if it worked would solve most of the problems with condition application by helping staff clones and the phantasmal mage.

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

i dont care about PR or whatever but they just said they dont want the AOE to affect the person going for the rez?

my comment to that is if you play pvp then you would understand how wrong u are.

we go for stomps but when we see they have 4 ppl around the body we use him as bait to see if the other team is gonna be dumb and all come for the rez we have to punish them.

its situational sometimes we aoe bodys sometimes we dont but we need that option to do it if the circumstance preseants itself.

for example if u dumb down aoe and we are fighting 2 bunker guards on a point 2v2 and they have mercy runes on then after 2 min when we down 1 we will have to aoe the body to even have a chance at a kill especially on the guard not downed because we blew everything on the downed 1 and we only have 15 sweconds before the other guard is back.

please ANET be very careful how you do whatever it is u are going to do to AOE i would suggest having some top teams help u with this.

What you are saying about needing aoe and dps to handle targets that are being rezzed is true but that is a separate issue. The rezzing mechanic has its own problems like quickness rezzing and the likes of it.

The problem with aoe is that we have one game mode that promotes players grouping up to contest and defend nodes which leaves them vulnerable to the abundant amount of aoe skills that cant be avoided in the limited space to fight.

If anything aoe damage can and maybe be left alone. What should be changed are the small nodes that are causing aoe to be considered a balance issue.

Vyndetta.9415:

AOE is defintily way too strong. They don’t need to make AoE useless, but it dumbs down the game to just aoe everything because its so much stronger when you compare it to single target dmg. AoE dmg also promotes aoe’ing downed targets instead of finishing them. It also doesn’t promote rezing. Its one of the main reasons why people bring rez signets and why those are so op right now(which is another problem).

A lot of times on my necro for example, if i see someone rezing i can lay wells and use aoe dmg and even 2-3 players can’t rez them (all of those players die in the process) because the aoe is so strong.

A lot of builds in the current meta are getting carried by AoE and are overpowering builds that should be viable. Those builds that aren’t viable right now are because they have less aoe or none at all.

I cant agree more with this post.

AOE has become the bane of this node based game mode. With the amount of low cool down high damage aoe skills the game has been reduced to spamming skills on nodes and downed players to achieve objectives.

The only place where aoe is not too problematic is the graveyard in legacy of the foefire which can be viewed as the only point in the game where strategic team play is better than dropping aoes on a point. It also shows that the problem with aoe skills is also being exaggerated by having conquest as the only game mode.

If they are going to change aoe skills they should not change the damage but should increase the requirements for their use. Skills like epidemic are a prime example of what a strong aoe skill should be which is requiring set up and being more effective in team play unlike the typical cluster bomb spam we are greeted with each game.

Alex.9268:

cesmode.4257:

At level 80, my condition mesmer is pretty difficult to kill and I can solo some really ridiculous pulls.

Look, all professions have suboptimal specs that can muscle through sticky pve and pvp situations.

That does not change the fact that mesmers suck at condition dps when compared to all other professions, and there is no disputing that.

From my observations of condition builds in pvp mesmers are the best of the bottom three condition classes with warrior being second and guardian being dead last.

Two things come to mind when I think of this the first being its better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven and the second being that the developers mentioned diverse build choices when the game was being hyped.

cesmode.4257:

Hiki.9310:

Edited for brevity.

Sorry, I am going to have to disagree with just about everything you said.

At level 80, my condition mesmer is pretty difficult to kill and I can solo some really ridiculous pulls. Even when I screw up and Im surrounded by 4 regular risen mobs and a veteran in Orr, I can take them down no problem. Even two veteran mobs and one or two regulars, no problem. You kind of need to know what all of your abilities do.

I agree that winds of chaos applying Vulnerability is kind of lame, but if you utilize that debuff you just applied (sorry, condition!), you can still turn it into a positive. I am always running around Orr with sword/focus for map completion. When I stop, and Im surrounded by a ton of mobs, I pop an iWarden, quickly switch to staff and drop Chaos Storm on top of him which provides him with protection everytime (as well as myself). So now I either phase retreat out of that ethereal combo field for a Chaos Armor application, or use mirror images to begin the Wind of Chaos spam from me and my ILLUSIONS. I stand up close and personal, getting all of the little buffs back…with the elasticity trait, WoC is bouncing around everywhere. The conditions wrack up with a few stacks of vulnerability, several bleeds, the ocassional burn and confusion (from when I dropped Chaos Storm). At this point I just kite around the mobs in a small area, phase retreating when an illusion is killed(which by the way applies another random condition when it dies). When my iWarden dies, I bring out iWarlock. Which by the way, these guys are granting me regeneration when I bring them out, plus they have never ending fury too.

I TRY to put myself in really difficult situations where I just get rofl stomped and die. I cant.

As for condition capping— this is really the only problem I have with being condition spec for any class. However, there are often times that hardly anyone in the group is running a condition build, and not all conditions are capped(bleeds, etc). So being condition specced is not bad in this case.

Plus, even though you’re stacking condition, youre really not ONLY relying on conditions to dps down everything. Your phantasms do a lot of damage, and provide other “nice to have” bonuses.

So, I really disagree with anyone that says a condition mesmer is weak. I run TA exp, and watch everyone else die and run back on the first boss. Im sitting there with my pimp hand solo’ing the kitten thing, not dying. Sure, situational awareness and skill come into play. But the mesmer is a hard to kill class.

I am going to have to clarify a few things I forgot to add in my first post. When I made this post it was in regards to how conditions mesmers are not as viable as other classes in tpvp.

When saying that you disagreed with all I said you proved my point about build diversity. In your post you mentioned the use of phantasmal warden and in a condition mesmer that points to stacked precision and sharper images .

I am not a pve player so I may be wrong in some aspects but in pve you don’t have to deal with enemy condition removal like in pvp and being able to handle multiple mobs is a matter of AI intelligence, gear, kiting and how conditions scale differently in pve.

The skill winds of chaos applying vulnerability is not bad in my opinion and I see it as a means of balancing the skill under the assumption that the trait illusionary elasticity would of worked for our staff clones (which it should). With the current condition mesmer in pvp we are only good in 1v1 in team fights we cant keep up decent condition damage and a functional illusionary elasticity seems to be the only remedy.

As to phantoms I agree and disagree with you. We have two phantoms that we can rely on for condition builds them being the duelist and warden but that’s just a matter of being pigeon holed into sharper images and crit chance. Also the torch phantom still lags behind without its extra bounce from illusionary elasticity.

I’m just going to paste what i wrote for another thread but the short answer is that condition mesmers are not that good.

Condition application – The condition application for this class is possibly one of the worst in the game when looking at the core weapon skills. The staff is our best condition weapon yet it’s auto attack comes with a one in three chance of failing (apply vulnerability), with a full set of staff clones and a target that never dodges or removes conditions it takes forever to see more than 6 bleed stacks.

Ever since confusion was removed from the scepter auto attack in beta, the clones generated from this weapon would over write the more useful staff clones that apply conditions and the sword clones that stack vulnerability and remove boons. At times it feels like the scepter is working against the player.

Phantoms – The only phantom that applies conditions by default is the phantasmal mage and its damage and condition application falls behind that of every other weapon based phantom regardless of the build.

Build diversity – There is only one way to get semi reliable condition application and that is for the mesmer players to limit their build options to just using the rabid amulet and taking the trait sharper images. With the current weapon skills and traits, builds that use shaman, carrion and rampager’s suffer from a lack of condition application and damage.

Traits – The trait deceptive evasion is good for most mesmer builds but because of its tendency to summon clones on the nearest target both shatter and condition builds have problems with it. For condition mesmers our condition application comes from our illusions with clones summed from this trait attacking random AI it cuts out a large portion of our damage. As for shatter mesmers its not as bad since mind wrack is aoe but it still hurts to have illusions shatter away from the intended target. Another trait that’s causing problems is illusionary elasticity the bounce from this trait is still not working for illusions and if it worked would solve most of the problems with condition application by helping staff clones and the phantasmal mage.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

Yes.

I don’t think there is any willingness to revisit Mesmer illusions though. Consider that one of the most useful clone types (Trident-wielders) are only that way unintentionally, because of a bug that hasn’t been fixed since launch.

My impression is that you’re only supposed to use illusions in a certain way. Giving them more utility would work against their main purpose as minion bombs.

From my point of view as a condition mesmer I see a need for our illusions to be changed. Sharper images has become a mandatory trait for condition builds and as a result the rabid amulet has as well.

The trait sharper images promotes not playing as a minion bomber since illusions need to be up to apply conditions and since staff is our only semi-reliable condition weapon swapping away from it just makes the mesmer weaker. We need damaging conditions for our illusions on another weapon set and a channeled 5 stacks of confusion from scepter does not cut it.

This kind of change would be great as a trait option and it would make more sense than “Confusing Cry“ that gives retaliation when using cry of frustration. Retaliation scales with power so to make the most of that trait a condition mesmer would have to use carrion amulet and with our current skills/traits its rabid amulet and sharper images since no other viable options really exist.

If the pistol came with condition application then we need it bad. Lets just pretend the scepter never existed.

zastari.1730:

Is this thread about PvE or something? My condition damage WvW build is dangerously overpowered to the point that it probably needs a nerf.

I should have been more specific with the original post but this was about spvp and tpvp. If people mentioned pve or wvw that would be their views on the problems with condition mesmers. Also if you are using a confusion build in wvw the damage is way more than that of spvp.

Here is the damage ratio for confusion from the wiki

PvE and WvW: 10 + (1.5 * Level) + (0.15 * Condition Damage) per stack
sPvP: 65 + (0.075 * Condition Damage) per stack

Nuka Cola.8520:

so this month they’re releasing a patch as big as an expansion, ya? Do expansions include new weapons/skill for every class to use? yes. if they don’t let us use at least one new weapon, that so called huge patch is a joke.

The chance that new weapons will come seem slim when we look at all the underused/underpowered weapons some of the classes have (warrior war horn, necromancer axe, mesmer torch and scepter). Whenever I see new weapon suggestions for mesmer its always a main hand pistol that does condition damage. This shows how the scepter is lacking as a condition weapon since some believe it needs to be replaced altogether with a new weapon for the same roll it should of filled.

Mephisto Loire.8207:

I really have a hard time too see existence rights for Staff Mesmers. Personaly I prefer Staff over GS and I go for Bitfrost as a legendary. But Staff currently is imo too weak. And what’s more it does not correspond to any of the other weapons wich makes switching weapons equal to lose power. This is very against Mesmer-playstile because until now no matter what build you play as a Mesmer switching weapons is what makes you strong. But not for the condition Staff Mesmer.

I’m only prefering to PVE though, as I don’t play PVP.

I would not say that the staff is weak it gets by in its current state but it just needs to have the trait illusionary elasticity work for our illusions to make it a great weapon.

I couldn’t agree more about the loss of power when switching away from the staff. The mesmer lacks a reliable condition applying weapon to use when swapping away from the staff and a channeled five stacks of confusion every fifteen seconds does not cut it.

We need confusion on the scepter auto attack from beta to come back. The confusion was removed when the condition did more damage with fewer stacks than it does now. Then they nerfed the damage of confusion and never brought it back to the scepter. After these changes a dev stated that the scepter needed improvements but all that came was a projectile increase.

Skyro.3108:

So far we’ve heard ANet state they want Scepter to be a defensive weapon. The scepter cooldown reduction trait also points to it being a condition-spec weapon. Scepter fills a hole in the Mesmer’s arsenal of a defensive, 1h’ed ranged weapon, but it is currently very lackluster. The changes are simple:

-Further adjustments to auto-attack speed (e.g. similar to Necro’s scepter auto-attack). The issue is the link between waiting for the projectile to hit the enemy before the start of the next attack in the chain, so you can either make it instant (like the Necro’s) or further increase projectile speed. The Scepter needs a strong auto-attack because its other skills are very situational.

-Add confusion to first 2 attacks chains to make it a true condition damage weapon and reduce direct damage to balance it out. Currently Scepter is actually a much stronger power-based weapon than a condition one.

-Change Scepter 2 skill to a defensive skill that synergizes with Scepter 3. For example an instant cast shield that blocks the next attack and Blinds the target when you’re struck (and perhaps a small AoE blind centered around the Mesmer if nobody strikes you after X secs). The Scepter 3 skill is nearly unusable in PvP in its current state due to being so easily interrupted and such a change will enhance the usability of both skills.

-Scepter 3 should have a cripple attached to it. It is way to easy to LoS/out-of-range the skill currently. Reduce it’s direct damage as necessary.

All of those idea sound wonderful. The only time scepter was ever good was when it had confusion on its auto attack but then it was removed.

sinican.9250:

DavyMcB.1603:

Regardless of how pretty and stylish condition build may seem, not only specific to mesmer, if you want an effective build, go for direct DPS. Because, obviously, hitting one key and bam! 10k is more effective than trying to waste 5 seconds stacking condition and wait for the number to tick.

Only works on glassy builds… any decent player and anyone with decent effective health/ defense will withstand or bust your burst, then what…

Conditions ignore armor/toughness leaving only large health pools the only remaining viable defense against condition builds… Let people kill themselves with my illusions/conditions while I play stay away from the dude with the big stick in his hands.

Large health pools are not the main counter to condition builds, the amount of condition cleanses is this game that work for single players and groups is immense. A single torch guardian or phantasmal disenchanter can nullify most of the condition application in the game.

Also when you say people are dying to your illusions while you play keep away the image of a condition mesmer running in circles as he tries to match his opponents damage output by praying for random crits and lucky dices rolls with the staffs auto attack comes to mind.

However, even if the viability of the staffs auto attack is debatable what is certain is that our scepter still needs to be given a damaging condition on its auto attack to bring it up t par with our other weapon options.

Recently.1043:

You can’t really compared mesmer condition to say…. necro condition or something, where their *primary build is condition build.

Necro could just as easily complain how they have no good power build compared to a mesmer.

There will always be one build that is at least slightly stronger than the rest. The problem is there is alot less versatility in builds compared to other games because there’s a much smaller pool of skills you can put on your skill bar, so it feels less diverse.

Mesmer condition build isn’t the best, but it isn’t horrible; at least it can apply a variety if different condition types which is better than some classes than can only apply say…. bleed + 1 cover condition.

When I made comparisons to other classes it was to show how there are guaranteed effects from their weapon skills in condition builds while the mesmer has unreliable to nonexistent condition application on their skill usage.

As to conditions being the primary build for necromancers that’s just one of the core build options that should be viable for all classes. Any class should be able to spec into dps, conditions or support without facing frustrating build issues.

sinican.9250:

Ummm wut? Bouncing attacks with Staff = 2x conditions applied per 1 attack, each staff clone applies conditions, chaos storm applies aoe conditions, chaos armor applies aoe conditions, field combos with light and staff(2) give you retaliation, traits give illusions retaliation, traits cause clones to apply aoe conditions when killed/replaced, traits give illusions fury/bleed on crits, shatters trait cause confusion with all shatters, traits to turn glamour skills into blinds and blinds into confusion, sigil weapon swap aoe conditions, rune aoe conditions, arcane thievery, and quite a few others I’ve not bothered to go over.

Loving my condition Mesmer… I think you iz crazy!

The bounce trait is bugged since the only illusion its working for are trident clones and retaliation scales with power.

As for the staffs aoe conditions it takes a full set of illusions and more time to do a portion of what other classes can do some examples would be trap rangers, staff elementalist, grenade engineers, staff/well necromancers and death blossom/short bow thieves. Those listed classes can apply aoe conditions far more reliably with less trait investment than a mesmer could ever match.

Also chaos armor and chaos storm cant be considered offensive since chaos armor only has a one in 3 chance of applying confusion on hit and the only damaging condition from chaos storm is a two second poison that might not proc.

Confusion from shatters and glamour skills is not as viable as you make it sound. In pvp confusion cant be considered a main source of damage since its so easily avoided and the traits to apply confusion with glamour’s only give one stack. Glamour skills are more for their utility than offense applications not to mention their long cool down as well.

This post was about the poor condition options that come with the mesmer class not the sigils and runes that can be used by other classes in addition to their skills.

Every time I play as a condition Mesmer it feels like a struggle to stay viable because of the things listed below.

Condition application – The condition application for this class is possibly one of the worst in the game when looking at the core weapon skills. The staff is our best condition weapon yet it’s auto attack comes with a one in three chance of failing (apply vulnerability), with a full set of staff clones and a target that never dodges or removes conditions it takes forever to see more than 6 bleed stacks.

Ever since confusion was removed from the scepter auto attack in beta, the clones generated from this weapon would over write the more useful staff clones that apply conditions and the sword clones that stack vulnerability and remove boons. At times it feels like the scepter is working against the player.

Phantoms – The only phantom that applies conditions by default is the phantasmal mage and its damage and condition application falls behind that of every other weapon based phantom regardless of the build.

Build diversity – There is only one way to get semi reliable condition application and that is for the mesmer players to limit their build options to just using the rabid amulet and taking the trait sharper images. With the current weapon skills and traits, builds that use shaman, carrion and rampager’s suffer from a lack of condition application and damage.

Traits – The trait deceptive evasion is good for most mesmer builds but because of its tendency to summon clones on the nearest target both shatter and condition builds have problems with it. For condition mesmers our condition application comes from our illusions with clones summed from this trait attacking random AI it cuts out a large portion of our damage. As for shatter mesmers its not as bad since mind wrack is aoe but it still hurts to have illusions shatter away from the intended target. Another trait that’s causing problems is illusionary elasticity the bounce from this trait is still not working for illusions and if it worked would solve most of the problems with condition application by helping staff clones and the phantasmal mage.

TL;DR ???
Shatter burst should not be the only build option.

There are a lot of traits that trigger on their own under different circumstances like the necro’s spectral armor at 50% health or the Mesmer shatter recharge. All of the classes have these types of traits yet the lack of visible timers make it hard for players to keep track of what they have available.

With traits that remove conditions, break stuns and provided other bonuses players need to be able to know when they will have them available since they are just as important as the utilities players bring.

The elite mass invisibility sometimes fails to apply stealth and when used with the runes of lysaa the boons will fail to apply sometimes as well. This bug seems to happen if the Mesmer is hit with a daze towards the end of the cast yet the skill goes on a full cool down.

The only way a mesmer could have near permanent protection was if the enemy chose not to kill any of the mesmer’s phantoms. This was not even an issue since the mesmer had to be within melee range of their phantoms which left them more susceptible to aoe damage and limited their movement.

i wish there was an option to use the underwater version on land.

Scepter and sword are the only two main hand weapons for the Mesmer and the latter does not need a phantom to meet most players expectations. For phantom builds the phantasmal swordsman, warlock and berserker suffice. As for the shatter builds the clone generation of the scepter is just a small bonus but most players would just use the sword.

What really needs to be done for the scepter is the addition of some form of condition damage to the auto attack so it would work like the condition weapon it should have been.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Before doing anything to staff THEY MUST REMOVE THE STUPID VULNERABILITY ON WINDS OF CHAOS. Then it will be half decent for dps and they can do whatever with it.

I believe the staff was meant to be balanced with the vulnerability on auto attack but only under the assumption that the trait illusionary elasticity would be working for our illusions. If they ever took the vulnerability off and fixed this bugged trait the staff auto attack from the mesmer and clones would be putting out at least 6 stacks of bleeding in the first barrage. All that needs to be done is a fix to make the bounce trait work and the staff would be more than just fine.

FalconFighter.9628:

1. i understand staff 2 would be difficult to fix because of its interaction with the environment, but
2. why does ANET not want us to use scepter? they took away confusion from the 3rd attack of the chain and from the clones. was that intentional? is it supposed to stay that way? if so, change the tooltip plz! i’m finding myself using sword with a CONDITION dmg build when i need to swap from staff
3. does illusionary elasticity not work with ANY clone attacks? i wanted to make a build that worked with clones and staff attacks and if clone attacks with a staff only hit once with this trait, then i dont think i even want to play this class if not for power builds…

4. are clones from deceptive evasion SUPPOSED to hit the closest target? is that the ‘design’ behind them? other classes’ dodge related traits have some sort of ICD, this one doesn’t, so is the clone’s lack of smart targeting the trade-off?? PLEASE give us some insight to your logic, ANET

5. my other biggest complaints: invis not breaking a channel against me (a rifle killshot); sharper image bug (no dmg from dot after illusion dies); illusionary persona not functioning with all other shatter related traits (does it at least work with might stacking now?); general lack of movement speed (give warriors some love too; if you don’t have having focus or warhorn in your weapon sets, it sucks having to open inventory, equip weapon, use swiftness, equip other preferred weapon again – all while avoiding combat; i remember playing lots of necro and keeping warhorn in my equipped weapons because it at least does other interesting things – daze, cripple; but warden?.. cmon.)

TL;DR: read 1, 2, 3 and maybe 4

The bounce trait bug is ruining more than just the staff its preventing the torch phantom from becoming useful and the disenchanter from removing more boons and conditions.

When the confusion on the scepter auto attack was removed that weapon has been scaling better with power and crit damage. For condition builds we are better off just using the sword for the defense since its the better choice of these two power based weapons.

As for the deceptive evasion trait that has been a thorn in our side for too long. Condition builds need clones to attack our target since they are our only source of condition damage. As of right now if a condition mesmer using this trait fights in any game with engineers, rangers, or someone with a rock dog most of our damage is going to be wasted on AI.

The trait “Illusionary Elasticity” is still bugged for mesmer illusions. This trait is only working for trident clones and because of this staff and torch condition builds are suffering.

This bug could be seen affecting the staff when a mesmer takes the trait shaper images and the rabid amulet. With those two items the application of bleeding by a staff Mesmer with three clones takes awhile to reach 10 Stacks and cant exceed that amount even if the target has zero condtion removal.

Without the extra bounce the only way to stack enough damaging conditions to kill in pvp is to use rabid amulet with the traits sharper images and phantasmal fury in conjunction with a phantasmal duelist. With this trait bug the phantasmal mage which seems to be built for condtion damage cant compare to a duelist with the aforementioned traits. This is seen in how the mage applies 3 stacks of confusion and a chance at 1 bleed stack while the duelist 6 to 8 stacks of bleeding in the same condtion build. If the trait was functioning properly the mage would apply 6 stacks of confusion with the extra bounce and would at least provide an alternate weapon choice for condtion builds.

The least damaging part of this bug is that it does not work for the phantasmal disenchanter which means less condtion and boon removal than should be possible.

I have only seen four to five other condtion mesmers in spvp since the start of beta and zero in tpvp. I owe it to this bug…

I don’t expect to see these things but I wish they would come someday.

• Illusionary elasticity fixed to work with staff clones, phantasmal disenchanter, phantasmal mage and any other illusions with a bouncing attack. (currently only works for trident clones)

• Scepter auto attack given some form of condition damage.

• Fixed the bug causing illusory duelist to have a 100% combo finisher.

*Fixed the bug causing signet of illusions to grant a 200% bonus.

I just want to see condition mesmers become more viable and have the most damaging bugs be fixed.

The third hit on the scepter chain is still not applying confusion and the trait “illusionary elasticity” is not working on staff clones or any phantasm with a bouncing attack. There is also a bug that makes a Mesmer freeze in place indefinitely if they use blurred frenzy.

In my opinion the introduction of an advanced option like the op proposed would be a great addition to the game. The use of free tourneys to test strategies and team compositions is a option but it is not practical for continuous testing.

As for the op’s ideas for paid tourneys, the locking of characters is neede. Too often do i see teams change their entire line up under the assumption that the team is playing with a certain tactic. This change should also extend to the players weapons, amulet and gear. In the current paid tournaments players would switch weapons just to gain buffs or change their builds entirely just for certain objectives like killing bosses or trebs.