Guild Wars 2

People aren’t accustomed to having to do any work to kill Mesmers

This is BS and you know it. Mesmer has always been a class that you need to play yourself or at least be very familiar with to beat it. Personally, i see at least 3 issues that need to be fixed currently:

1) Revert PU to its pre-patch state. It was powerful, now it’s just broken.

2) Change or remove Confounding Suggestions in a way that it doesn’t allow for 1200 range instant stuns.

3) Swap MtD and Scepter Mastery to force a decision between MtD and Ineptitude. Also, revert MtD to 2 stacks.

Of course they should look at every class and i think the same about Consume Plasma as you or every other mesmer does. But this is the mesmer forum, so we should do what we can to get our class balanced and believe in the other classes’ players or go to their forums ourselves to get them right.

If you were to decent player you already did good before the patch. Thanks to Confounding Suggestions and PU being OP, you are now able to melt thieves the moment they become visible and outstealth them if not.

Sure, it’s fun, but it’s not balanced.

You don’t have to, condi is still strong. If you hadn’t already, take Ineptitude. You’ll see how many blinds you stack up between shatters, dodges and chaos armor.

Also, the confusion can’t be evaded, so it’s just like the old clone death build again.

The mantra is fine, it’s Confounding Suggestions that makes it op.

PPPS: Lockdown is not interrupt. Interrupts require skillful timing and knowledge. It’s nothing the mainstreamers will be able to do effectively.

Which is funny, because Confounding suggestions doesn’t need an interrupt. You only need to push 1 button and watch someone being helpless while you burst them to death. And you can do this about every 10s while being stealthed in between.

Granted, i’m only a WvW roamer, but the only builds i had problems with so far are other mesmers (condi, mostly) and LB rangers.

I play some kind of Shatterlock (Dom, Chaos, Illusions) and i honestly feel sorry for thieves sometimes. 1200 range insta-stun followed by oneshot shatter is like the worst thing that could happen to them.

People will hate me for bringing this up again, but on top of that burst i probably also have a higher stealth uptime than them.

At least you were 2/3 right, namely with the “GS” and “zerker” part. If you take a look at my signature, you’ll see i main a mesmer, though.

Sorry, if it appears this way. I think all (or most, not sure) classes need to be toned down right now, but since i’m a main mesmer this is the class where i know most about.

I actually use PU myself right now in a Dom/Chaos/Illu Shatter/Lockdown hybrid (right, without DE) and it’s very strong. Unless i overextend, i can escape from everything and still burst thieves in under a second if done right.

Don’t get me wrong, i like this, but i don’t think “hide in stealth until you see the opportunity to oneshot” or “hide in stealth while your illusions do the job” is something that is fun to play against.

For, for one the “cannot attack” part obviously only applies to the mesmer, not for illusions. Also, being able to full heal or reset fights in stealth is what people hated about thieves since the game got released.

There are currently more pressing issues, like the general power creep (all classes need their damage toned down, both condi and power), but i still think the trait is a bit too strong right now.

Perma-stealth works in many games, because you cannot do anything while its up.

That’s the thing, you can do something in stealth, especially as mesmer. Also, other games usually give you a long or permanent stealth once and as soon as you enter combat, stealth becomes sparse and can only be used as a last resort.

I don’t think adding more stealth to the game is the right way to go. It promotes lazy gameplay for all classes and is both boring and frustrating to play against.

To be fair, all damage is over the top right now, both power and condition.

You never bothered to test this, right?

If you don’t see how broken PU is, i fear nobody can help you.

Since Ineptitude exists, you don’t really need MtD anyway. And PU was borderline op even before the patch, now it’s just braindead.

Mesmers SHOULD be able to maintain stealth.

No, mesmer stealth always has been a utility to be used for short target breaks. Thief is the class that uses longer-lasting stealth.

Damage needs a nerf across the board. I should never be able to one-shot zerg warriors and conditions in general tick way too high.

Also PU needs to be reverted, at least.

Condi mesmer is still op thanks to Ineptitude (and even more so with PU), so i don’t really see a problem with that.

No, they gain protection while they are running to their targets.

/edit: The distortion won’t prevent them being shattered, either, if that was the question.

It got merged into Power Block (Domination GM).

/edit: Since my dear torch trait got moved, i’ve now settled for Domination/Duelling/Illusions shatter/lockdown hybrid, which works quite nice so far.

The iLeap change kinda messed up my jukes Ah well, i will adjust.

Seeing that ele autoattack was fixed to remove the cancel-exploit, it seems only fair to give mesmers the same treatment.

I want the torch trait back in Domination, but that won’t happen since it seems they don’t want 6/6/6 lockdown to have condi cleanse.

I recently came back from a ~1/2 year long hiatus for the new system. I’m currently playing my 4/4/6 PU lockdown build, but will likely change to a Dom/Duel/Illu shatter build, since i want to take the torch trait (hopefully they buff it a bit, though).

Yeah, i would much prefer for clones to shatter instantly against stealthed targets. Not only for F4 (which doesn’t really care about the target) but for all other shatters as well. I often use F2, or sometimes F1, to dispose of my clones when i’m up against a /D thief and know he will CnD off a clone the next second.

Don’t know about Clusterbomb, but Forward Withdraw should be easier than Mesmer’s Phase Retreat, since it’s not instant.

With some practice, the latter one can easily be done without macros. Lag obviously makes that impossible to pull off.

Just for reference: I trained phase retreat for about 3 hrs and whenever i felt like during normal gameplay afterwards. With enough training, it just feels natural after a while.

/edit: Needless to say, i still fail some times, because Phase Dashing demands you to press About Face ~0.25s before Phase Retreat and in the heat i sometimes mess that timing up. But i have seen Helseth fail at doing it, too, so that’s ok for me ^^

Watch this video:
https://youtu.be/uudHN4IwsXc

At about 1:20 i use distortion and you can see the invulnerable icon (+ the master of reflection icon) popping up, going away, and popping up again. I didn’t get hit in between but it seems like i was vulnerable for like a second during F4 at that moment.

Note that this was with IP traited.

WvW Zerg or Smallscale/Solo?

I don’t zerg, so i can’t say anything about that, but smallscale i would prefer power builds over condi. You will have a hard time killing anything with condi, because everyone can easily walk away from you.

GS is good for its range, cripple, denying Shadow Refuge and potential Mirror Blade bursts. Staff is good for mobility (learn Phase Dashing) and group fights, but dies to rangers pretty fast. Sword generally offers good defense and juking options. I prefer torch for offhand because of stealth and traited cleanse, but all other weapons will work as well.

By any chance, did your target move behind you while you held RMB?

That’s already in game, it’s called endurance.

At that point, the trait may as well be completely removed, along with a bunch of other traits. I’ve never met a single mesmer that uses it, because it does nothing against the only class where it could be useful.

If i manage to daze you in that 0.25s non-evade frame at the end of Flanking Strike against a build that hard counters >90% of all mesmer builds and spend 6 trait points for a trait, i should be rewarded for it, no?

CI can wreck you in that situation, PB does nothing.

No, 1s later all the enemy revenants pull their Mallyx elite, giving them traited resistance and spreading the few dozen stacks of bleeding back to the enemy xD

besides some cultural armors and the first bit of the personal story there is absolutely nothing special about any of the races at all

And that’s a good thing. They did this to not have a “best” race for a given class/build, so you can pick you class purely for aesthetic reasons. Actually, i’d say racial skills shouldn’t be allowed in WvW the same way they aren’t for PvP.

2) is basically how guardian staff symbol worked before it was revamped and would probably be an easy way to fix some of the problems with current Temporal Curtain.

I don’t want having to wait until my 3s swiftness ran out, before i can lay down the Curtain (for example, because i will be running through mobs 3s later and they will bring me in combat when they cross the field etc).

Arah or PvE in general doesn’t matter here, because OP’s question is about WvW.

With GS/Staff you have multiple builds you could play:

- Double ranged shatter, usually 4/4/0/0/6. I would not recommend that, though, since the lack of stealth and Blurred Frenzy evade will make you a lot more vulnerable against pew pew rangers and the like.

- CI Lockdown, either 4/4/6 or 2/6/6. I played the latter one and i was overall quite satisfied with the results. You will probably have to sacrifice Decoy for a cleanse or use Sigils of Purity/Generosity/Cleansing and try to stay away from conditions. Since you trait 6 into chaos, you are a bit more tanky against those rangers.

- Phantasm. I don’t have a build for that, but both Staff and GS phantasms can hit for a good amount of damage, so you should be able to build around that.

You could also try to build a clone death condi build, since both weapons have low cooldown clone producers and gs clones can stack a good amount of bleeds with Sharper Images. I’m not a condi players, so i won’t be able to help you there, either.

While basically everything in Season 2 is instanced, Season 1 involved world defining changes (like the destruction of Lion’s Arch) and one-time-only events, like Southsun Cove. You can’t really repeat that.

PPT are, in it’s core, the carrot that makes WvW function. Basically, we have 4 maps with open world PvP and some people that just walk around, fighting each other. We call them roamers.

But that alone probably won’t attract enough players to fill the maps and the roamers would get bored, so there needs to be something drawing other players on the maps. That being PPT.

So in the end, WvW is for both types of players and there is no wrong way to play. And since this is the internet, everyone will complain about the other one playing the wrong way.

Also note that PPT are, as long there is no tournament, meaningless, so you don’t lose out on anything. And even when there is a tournament, it’s still only a game. And if you are playing for loot, WvW is the wrong gamemode, anyway.

That, too, but swiftness and phase dashing is still faster. It’s a lot of work to do while just walking around, but i got used to it after a while.

In a world in which light and medium armors offer no advantage whatsoever over heavy armor, with the only actual difference between armor types being a few points of defense rating

Who said this? In game mechanics, that is true, but lore-wise, heavy armor is very much heavier than light armor and slows you down. Movespeed being the same across all professions is explained with guardians/warriors being physically stronger than the other classes.

Would a mesmer in heavy armor be slower than in light armor? Lore-wise probably yes, that’s why they don’t even try to wear it and stick with lighter armor instead. Also, metal could very much impair their magical abilities, so they try to stay away from it.

TL;DR: You can explain everything with lore.

Also, don’t even try to argument with real life in a fantasy game, that just won’t work.

Usually, a single roamer is much more valuable to a server than yet another player in a zerg. Roamers only look for fights, but to find them we take camps and farm zerg tails, which in turn helps the zerg.

A smallscale group can take a tower or even ninja a keep at some times, too.

Also, some zergs get really angry when they see their zerglings farmed, that they chase a single roamer around the map, until they kill him, wasting their time. Even better, sometimes they split and since roamers are usually built for 1v1-1vX fights, they are able to win against zerg build players.

If i’m not mistaken, someone did the math and warrior’s Healing Signet still outheals both heals a Revenant has access to.

I wouldn’t call the increased defense from medium over light or heavy over medium pointless. Ascended heavy armor is ~300 points higher than ascended light armor. I won’t do the math, but that should make some difference.

Aside from that, at the start of the game this was probably made so there is a visual difference between the armor classes. You couldn’t identify an enemy’s class by icon and there were no customes.

With time, the visual borders between the classes blurred because they released more customes, and you don’t need to rely on the armor look since you can easily see the enemy class now.

Getting over 25 bleeds alone will be quite a stress, though. 25 Vulnerability, on the other hand, is easily done when traiting at least 3 in Domination.

I can already feel warriors getting slowed mid-Killshot, causing me to dodge too early… ^^

Personally i would like to have a command like /clear or /cls that allows me to clear the chatbox so i don’t have to spam emotes or something until i don’t have to read that stuff anymore.

Oh well, on mesmer i switch to focus every 25s and sometimes to staff every 10s in order to be able to move fast, other classes can’t have it worse than this ^^

The only thing the grub has ever been good for is making it attack blue keep…

Damage conditions wouldn’t change at all for players. You are pretty much dead when hit with 25 bleeds, anyway.

Vulnerability on the other hand could be a bigger problem. A single shatter/lockdown mesmer can easily get 25 stacks with a well timed F3 shatter.

While it makes landing bursts easier, CI isn’t necessary. Personally, i tend to swap it for PU lately, because i mainly roam in WvW and the added survival helps immensely.

I would think about picking something else than CS, though. I can’t really like a trait that lengthens my dazes only to randomly decide to give me a 1s stun instead.

Also, since i’m lazy i don’t like having to manage 2 mantras, having to recast them after every fight because i used 1 or 2 charges. Not saying you should drop them as they are the main benefit of 6/6/0/2.

Ghost Bear.5280:

As for Shadow Refuge, use a skill that knocks back and you’ll reveal anyone knocked out of it, even downed players. Thieves have only one skill that gives stability and it’s an elite.

Nitpicking: You can’t knockback downed players, only launch them. Eg, Updraft is a launch, while iWave is only a knockback.

They can’t really remove pets for the same reason they can’t remove (but can alter) shatter for mesmers, initiative for thieves, adrenaline for warriors etc. All professions have traits spread across all traitlines affecting their profession mechanic.

They would have to redesign nearly all traits, which they most likely won’t do. So specializations will probably alter profession mechanics, but the core will stay the same.

Saturn.6591:

I don’t know what you are talking about in some cases (Blinking on top of camps in WvW? Huh, what? Sounds so weird and mostly useless (and impossible too since you can’t actually walk up there) that I’ve never even tried that.)

We are meaning spots like this:
https://youtu.be/2oTKJBz4DGs

You can walk up there and that blink helped immensely when fighting outmanned to get some breathing space. It seems like most of these spots still work, except this one, though, so i guess it’s some kind of bug.