Guild Wars 2

Of course it can be done. It’s done already for skills that have auto attack enabled on them, and program-wise it’s just a matter of clearing the stack in the same way stow-weapon would, before adding the defensive skill to it, resulting it in being the only skill on the stack and therefore at the top of the queue.

It would be nice to have for these evade skills, absolutely. In the meantime, as most are probably aware but I’ll say it anyway on the off-chance: it can be self-achieved by stow-weapon+the skill you want to activate. It’s not the same of course; obviously, it adds a few ms before activating the evade skill, and, regarding #1, for those not using the auto-attack setting for their #1 skill, stow-weapon needs to be properly timed to cancel it or it will keep executing the chain.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

So I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about when the patch note specifically states that Vigor and other endurance-regen effect (like Endless Stamina) can stack up to a max of 100%. So even if you trigger Hard to Catch while under Vigor, it’s still 100%.

Interpret it in context with the OP. It implies he thinks effects stack onto vigor to make it up to 100%, allowing endless stamina to enhance it by the equivalent of 50% endurance regeneration. This is false. Endless stamina cannot relatively increase the effectiveness of other endurance enhancing buffs by way of them being stacked onto vigor because they do not stack onto – i.e. enhance – vigor; only endless stamina can enhance vigor. Endless stamina does not stack with vigor or any other endurance enhancing buff. Vigor stacks with them, and endless stamina merely improves vigor.

…..

Akagami.9861:

kinda hard to experiment during Raids….don’t you think?…

Then how do you suppose builds make it to meta?

Personally, I’d want to test a build in the environment it was designed for.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Didn’t they say they increased it 10% in a patch but it was never increased?

Hmm. If so, they didn’t say “fixed” in this patch….

Which means we got another 10% buff, and are still missing our previous 10% buff!

Let the cries for a 10% buff continue!

Endless Stamina has no endurance regeneration increase to stack with anything. It is a buff to vigor, not endurance regeneration independent of vigor, therefore it cannot stack with vigor.

reikken.4961:

From my tests, chain takes about 1.87 seconds now, down from 2.52

This gives it a 1.55 dps coefficient

So a ~25.75% increase. They added a 5% damage buff for Sword to Swindler’s Equilibrium. Maybe their stated 30% included that trait buff… Saying they increased it by about 30% was misleading then.

Azukas.1426:

Let’s get some predictions here on the following items:

1. Amount of time post patch until we see 1st mesmer dead b/c Anet hates us thread.

2. GG anet ele ded for 1 yr again thread.

3. Necro OP nerf meow thread!

4. OMFG you broke PvP thread

5. WTFUBUFFTHIEFTHEYOMGWTFOPNOW #GUTTHIEFNOW

Discuss

1. Minutes. Got to have something to do while downloading the patch, and crying seems popular.
2. Already had them.
3. After the first few PvPers download the patch and play a match. The guy that cries OP will be someone who died to reaper a few days before, but now has a patch to blame instead of himself.
4. Trick question. It’s already broken.
5. Not sure. There will be these threads – there always are – but it won’t be because of the patch. Judging from the past, ANet will find a way to make the thief buff justify an equal or greater nerf.

Daredevil, mostly, and always when my team lacks sufficient direct damage. Reaper a fair amount, usually when there is another thief, my comp lacks support, or the other team has 2 bunker mesmers, and the other team doesn’t have too many eles and or mine doesn’t lack sufficient offensive pressure to deal with Diamond Skill. Lastly, a few using shatter mesmer for those cases where my team has some support and the other team has 2+ tempests.

Not because reaper and shatter mesmer are the most effective alts, but because they are what I can play.

Lol.

Look at all the people come to argue that there’s nothing wrong with necro/reaper being meta, when all the OP did was say it would be.

I guess he must have made it clear he was against it ingame or in PM?

Shovel Face.4512:

Blinding powder should be a base skill for thief. Having at least 1 skill that puts us in stealth makes sense considering we are masters of stealth. I just feel having blinding powder as one of ur utility skills is such a waste because of its god awful CD and it’s only a 3s stealth. Anet, please make Blinding Powder a base skill, f3 skill, for thief.

THIS.

Rickster.8752:

Impact.2780:

New maps were asked for and we were told sure, but they seemed to have been abandoned or became stronghold instead. I still remember seeing them in development – for a while you could see them on the map in Heart of the Mists, just like you can see the other PvP maps there.

I’m not against the idea of ANet working on Spirit Watch to make it a good choice, either in conquest or as its own game mode. The issue with having it in ESL or ranked is that its map mechanic is too different from the other maps that it would affect your comp. This can be argued over because teams change comps between matches on Legacy, Forest, Temple and Khylo already, I suppose, but even so, it still needs working on. ESL removed Temple while it had an bug, even though it was avoidable by standing closer to the buffs when channeling.

I would have preferred Spirit Watch reworking into a capture the flag mode, or just a new map for that type of mode, instead of Stronghold with its PvE/NPC-reliant element. I detest Stronghold, and whether you like it or not, it is not ESL material, and the majority of the PvP playerbase (from my understanding) prefer Conquest, and of them only those looking to get quick pips or dailies will consider Stronghold.

Whether I like it not its not esl material lol?

As for “its requires different comps”. That is the point dude. People are afraid to lose because their comp isnt op as kitten. Lets face it. You proved me right with your comments

Nope. You’re complaining that it’s not been put in ranked or tournaments. I explained why and that it needs to be worked on in order to fit in, or become a new game mode. That is in no way “proving you right.”

Even so, as I mentioned as an after-thought in my post: teams often alter their comps on the maps already in Ranked anyway, therefore a different comp isn’t much of a big deal so long as it isn’t drastic and requiring people to know more than one class to be able to compete in one mode. Being able to multi class should be an asset, not requirement, hence why game different modes are separated.

New maps were asked for and we were told sure, but they seemed to have been abandoned or became stronghold instead. I still remember seeing them in development - for a while you could see them on the map in Heart of the Mists, just like you can see the other PvP maps there.

I’m not against the idea of ANet working on Spirit Watch to make it a good choice, either in conquest or as its own game mode. The issue with having it in ESL or ranked is that its map mechanic is too different from the other maps that it would affect your comp. This can be argued over because teams change comps between matches on Legacy, Forest, Temple and Khylo already, I suppose, but even so, it still needs working on. ESL removed Temple while it had an bug, even though it was avoidable by standing closer to the buffs when channeling.

I would have preferred Spirit Watch reworking into a capture the flag mode, or just a new map for that type of mode, instead of Stronghold with its PvE/NPC-reliant element. I detest Stronghold, and whether you like it or not, it is not ESL material, and the majority of the PvP playerbase (from my understanding) prefer Conquest, and of them only those looking to get quick pips or dailies will consider Stronghold.

lloydst.6985:

Or you are since it was announced about a week ago

^ and asked for by a lot of players on the forums weeks before that.

1) Learn different strategies and what the right one to use for your comp is.
2) Consider gaining proficiency in more than one class to be able to swap to strengthen your comp.
3) Get fast enough at typing to tell your team what to do, while playing.
4) Get raged at by the clueless but ignorant and or stubborn.
5) Facepalm.
Follow these steps and one day soon, your facepalm will evolve into a glare.

Warning: Danger of cracked computer screen.

Ritt.3069:

I had 2 thieves earlier on my time. Both played a Pistol Pistol build that lacked solo presence, team fight presence, and they could not even decap effectively due to enemy team having 2 aware revs. xD

That being said, I never mind having one great thief on my team. But having 2 of them in your team results in a loss more often than not. I generally ask to see if either of them can reroll.

Even when there is only one thief, more often than not the thief will stick around in a fight as needed while a hard target respawns, intending to then decap far in order to recover when that hard target joins – also known as swapping! But… the hard target with all its tankiness, support and full health decides to go straight to far for the decap, so the fight the thief was assisting in order for it to be kept until that guy respawned, ends up being lost.

If that respawner is pro, he will often complain he is doing the thief’s job, oblivious that his actions not only prevented the thief from doing his job, but that he caused the fight to be lost, not the thief.

Get game.
Pick one class, main it.
Play it until you’re bored, don’t feel like it suits you, or more interested in another.
Pick a second class, stick with it as if it were main.
If like it, main it.
Once at certain point with main, try all classes out just a little to get to know their skills and how they play. Then, return to main class, be better for it.
When opportunity presents, duel using other classes for better understanding without having to really commit anything to them.
Once at a high level, pick an alt with a play style you can work with.
Use alt when main is not good for the comp, in a weak state, or just for a change.

Sounds like those 2 thieves lost pips for a 4v5.

Exciton.8942:

‘Mesmers have always had practically perfect condition clear’
Stopped reading after this….

It just occurred to me that now these tanky "Soldier" builds will be able to run air, blood and fire sigils. Fun times?

morrolan.9608:

You want ele nerfed even more?

Ele may have a skill called Frost Aura, but Frost Aura is available to any class that decides to execute a leap finisher inside an ice combo field, which reaper can do on its own and any other class can do with an ele or reaper or their team.

ArthurDent.9538:

Actually less power

Dangit you’re right, and I knew it was 1050 as well. Why did I say say more power lol.

Place on caster is very restricting. Even skill clickers use the double press option to avoid placing AoE on themselves all the time.

There are only three tips outside of practice that come to mind right now.

One concerns minimizing the distance to travel to the keys, which can be done by rebinding your controls. One such example is moving the movement keys to, for example QWES, so you are only 1 row away from the numbers, and then not going past 4 to avoid needing to reach too far. QWERASD\ZXC`1234 are good keys to bind. There’s also getting a mouse with additional buttons.

The next also concerns keybinds, but is about making sure you can use the right skill combinations at the right time in different scenarios. This means not binding two skills that will likely need to be used together at the same time, such that they can only "easily" be activated by the same finger, because then, obviously, your hand will have to twist, costing time and causing discomfort. It also means not binding two skills that will likely need to be used in quick succession too far apart or in such a way that the previous point will prevent it. For example, you’d want stow weapon easily accessible at the same time you’re using any of your weapon or utility skills, and set it up for a finger that doesn’t use those skills. For example, if you use your first and fourth finger for weapon and utility skills that are on your keyboard, you could set up stow weapon to be used by a different digit. For further example, you wouldn’t choose your middle finger, because while it would work, you wouldn’t be able to easily move forward when stowing, so you might instead choose to set it up for your thumb.

Finally, as you mentioned, ground targeted skills use the mouse a lot. Not all players like the GW2 mouse pointer, and find it much easier to keep track of their mouse position using a more visible pointer. This could help save you miliseconds when placing ground targeted skills.

Cobrakon.3108:

What would be the next best Choice? I was thinking maybe
Valk + Toughness Runes

Paladin’s...

Soldier’s is a selfish team fighter amulet. Self survival stats and some power. Anything less selfish, aiming to extend its defensive and supportive skills to its group, takes some healing power, usually from celestial or cleric’s.

Paladin’s is the Solider’s replacement, providing less toughness and vitality, in exchange for precision and more power. Some defensive stats to keep it standing, and offensive because aside from needing those defensive stats to survive, its focus is offensive pressure. That, and it outshines valkyrie for survival and in most cases damage as well.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

vlad.4871:

you don t even know the full balance changes nostradamus.

Yeah we do. 100% of the time Anet “previewed” balance changes, those “previews” were 100% of the coming changes.

It would be foolish to think it would be different this time.

Almost. They were actually 99% of the changes. ANet left out of the preview a couple of things which made players go from being eager for everything good in the preview, to annoyed at yet another patch ruined.

I did not say it can’t happen, or that it won’t. I said it won’t necessarily happen. I am of the opinion there will be either 2 scrappers or 1 scrapper and 1 engineer (A.K.A 2 engi) in meta comps. However, I can’t and don’t know for sure, especially when not knowing all the changes yet. What I am saying is, there doesn’t have to be 2 of a particular class per comp just because they are top picks. Thief for instance, has for a lot of metas, been a top pick, but only one per team (except for one, brief, exception, and that team did not do very well).

I’ve seen tournaments from as far back as 18 months. Stronghold has nothing to do with the meta as far as competitive PvP is concerned, lol.

Shirlias.8104:

I hope they wont, but i won’t bet on it.
2x ele/eng was the normal setup into the old meta, and this season 2x mes was the same.

So it is not true that you won’t take 2 of the same class.

Nor is it necessarily true that you will. Before that, it was war, ele, engi, mesmer/guard, thief, and before that it was guard, ele, engi, mesmer, thief, and before that it was guard, ele, war, mesmer, thief. (I’m referring to EU meta since I’ve only been in NA since July and only active in NA since late September.)

Shirlias.8104:

i would like to see 1x into meta ( no more 2xele/2xeng, etcetc ), i hope there will be 5 top ( meta ) classes instead the 2/3 posted by you all.

-Thief
-Druid
-Eng
-Necro
-Guardian/Revenant/MaybeWarrior

Just because there are a number of top/meta classes doesn’t mean they will be stacked. Nor does, for example, having both necro and reaper above tempest, mean there will be 2 “necro” in a comp, it just means reaper and necro are better meta picks than – have priority over – tempest, but reaper fills the same role as necro and does it better, so while necro would be prioritised over tempest, if you have a reaper already, you won’t take a necro, leaving a spot open for a tempest.

We’ve had the superspeed warriors already back when swiftness affected gs movement skills. Swiftness alone is enough.

As for protection... Lol. In a 1v1 there is enough regen not to need it. In a team fight, which is where a warrior should be most of the time, there are other team fighters/support roles granting protection already.

Wears heavy armour and wields a great sword, yet runs at superspeed, receives even further reduced damage and rapidly regenerates health. Let’s not make warriors Clark Kent.

Inb4 everyone queues as thief or mesmer with intent to re-roll, so they don’t get a thief or mesmer on their team.

Another thread on why division in this league iteration is meaningless -_-.

Agemnon.4608:

Dahkeus.8243:

With the amulet changes, I’m not sold on druids doing too well...

Thieves will be in a good spot, but I don’t expect you’ll still ever want to have more than 1 on a team. However, I do expect every team in leagues will go back to having one.

Mender’s looks like it syncs with druid even better than celestial does. You have more burst potential while still maintaining viable healing. Sigil of transference should be decent.

Druids don’t have enough stability go to the no toughness route. They will be hit on as if they were marauder, and can’t heal when cc chained by scrappers, daredevils, or even warriors and other druids. Anything that doesn’t have full support options - healing, cleansing and boons for allies - can’t go the full support route, and would need to take Paladin’s. This also includes Tempests unfortunately because by design they need that vitality and toughness. Except in the case of Tempests, they have the old healing potential of arcane and water, plus that from auras with tempest, so they may be able to return to the D/D bruiser role that they had to ditch due to it having insufficient pressure in a bunker meta.

Soul.9280:

Impact, did you fail to mention Revenant intentionally (because they will be trash after the patch) or due to oversight? You also failed to mention Druid/Ranger… and given the lack of nerfs to Druid, I’m thinking Druid will still be in the meta.

Oversight.

Druids I just plain don’t like. I never felt they offered anything except the ability to 1v1.

In terms of what will be viable but not necessarily meta:

Offense:

• Reaper
• Necromancer
• Daredevil
• DH (meditations)
• Herald (Power)
• Thief?
• Scrapper?
• Chronomancer? (condi ofc.)

Team fighter:

• Scrapper
• Tempest
• Engineer

Support:

• DH
• Tempest
• Guardian
• Engineer?

In terms of what will be meta:

Offense:

• Reaper
• Daredevil
• DH (meditations)
• Herald (Power)

Team Fighter:

• Scrapper
• Tempest
• Engineer

Support:

• DH

Edit: If you want some sort of order.. I suppose
1) Reaper
2) Scrapper
3) Daredevil
4) Engineer
5) Herald
6) Tempest
7) Necromancer
8) DH
9) Druid
10) Thief
11) Guardian
12) Berserker
13) Warrior
14) Ranger
15) Chronomancer
16) Elementalist
17) Mesmer
18) Revenant

There will still be bunkers... The stats are just being balanced in light of the sustain, healing, cc and evasion classes now have. As for already having had a burst meta, firstly, I highly doubt we will have another now, secondly, would you really prefer a bunker meta? Actually I shouldn’t ask because it doesn’t matter; the majority of players hated it, ANet didn’t intend for it, and it’s bad for the competitive scene both for fun and esports. Thirdly, so what if there is a burst meta? Not everyone currently playing was here for it last time, so it’ll be a new meta for a lot of players, and with new builds anyway.

I don’t mind passive defenses that are defensive, such as gain armour of earth when disabled, create a smoke bomb when disabled, break stun and gain endurance, break stun and gain stability, and transfer disabling effect to your pet. While they counter your otherwise punishment for failing to avoid the disabling effect, they are not sufficient to carry a player or have a significant effect on the outcome of a fight.

What is bad for this game, are passive defenses that punish the attacker, and can, through no skillful play, have a significant effect on the outcome of a fight, such as taunt the attacker, fear the attacker, stun the attacker, return the effect to the attacker. This isn’t restricted to traits either. I’ve always hated nightmare runes for this as well.

What’s more, is that these traits trigger even when the player does not feel the effects of the cc. If they have stability and get hit with a daze that simply removes one stack, or get hit with fear while resistance is up, they get to take full advantage of their offensive passive defense, offensively, because the attacker is now disabled and they themselves are not. This is the most broken aspect of all.

I’m not against these skills existing, but I think it could be so much better for the game that if these passives are either removed, or are modified to add additional skills to an array of skills above the utility bar where the player can actively activate them, and also keep track of their cool downs. The same thing could be done for traits activating skills automatically when striking in a certain position, because those cool downs are also difficult to keep track of.

Haha. What nonsense that ping makes no difference. Ping is a huge factor. I used to play on NA while living in England. My gameplay was practically rehearsed. I played thief and I’d dodge half the time simply after pressing a few skills, and the other half in prediction of something important. Then, when I had no reason to be on NA anymore and switched to EU, I found I could actually use my dodges and evades in response to skills instead of trying to predict them. When I went back to NA briefly, I found I couldn’t even dodge earthquake. I could see it coming and press dodge, but I’d be hit at the same time the dodge animation started, and the hit would count.

That’s an extreme example.

A less extreme example: while on EU, I had 30-40 ping; at times it went up to 60-70, and I could tell. I would feel something was different, check my ping, and find it higher. Now, some people may not be that sensitive, especially when playing classes that don’t rely as much on quick reactions, but the fact is that 20-30ms does make a difference.

At a higher ping, you’ll get more dispute over this fact because it is closer to the point at which you can react in time or not based on those precious ms, and not everyone has the same reaction time, and different classes have different skills with different cast times that they would want to use in response. The average reaction time for humans is 250ms. If you have 100ms ping, and someone uses a skill with a 750ms cast time that you need to activate something in response to, you need 100ms again to send the response to the server, leaving you with 450ms to react - register it and decide what to do. If this is to dodge or use an instant cast skill, you have time even if the skill you’re reacting to had a 500ms cast time. But, if you need to use a 250ms cast time skill in response, it’ll take the average person 500ms to respond - 250ms average reaction time, and 250ms for the skill’s cast time. Now this isn’t completely accurate because the game engine does try to make up for lost time up to a point (obviously, it can’t rollback player’s actions to account for a packet sent from several game states ago), but the point is clear, and will apply in other scenarios. If you have quicker reactions of 220ms, you fall short by 20ms, thus, 20-30ms ping would make the difference. If you have slow reactions of 270ms, you would not only be further off from making the play, but you would be less sensitive to the ping difference and find that 20-30ms faster ping would be of little benefit. Similarly, if you are a more skilled player and had been anticipating the skill, you’d be more ready to react to it, meaning faster reactions, so the more skilled player would also feel the benefit of 20-30ms ping reduction, while less skilled players not anticipating it would react slower and therefore not have reacted in time with the ping reduction anyway.

Moving a chunk of my comment on another thread to here, which is where I should have made it in the first place, tbh.

Impact.2780:

I don’t think ele/tempest will be dead with the upcoming patch. I think it’s going to become a bruiser again. It’ll play more similar to the former bruiser build, utilising the various sources of vigor and that adept trait in Tempest which restores 10 endurance each time vigor is applied. This effect also extends to allies. Utilizing this, I believe it can deal with the loss of energy sigil.

Now I’m not the best at theory crafting for ele, but I did come close last time. It needs either Tempest+Arcane, or Tempest+Shouts. With Arcane, it has enough vigor application not to need shouts, so it can take water for cleanses and party support, and cantrips for self survival. It would probably take D/D.
With Shouts, it doesn’t need Arcane but will need Earth for the protection and diamond skin for the cleanse. It would lack team cleanse support with only overload water, but have self-cleanses through the new diamond skin and the focus, team healing through auras and the shout heal, and provide boon support through shouts instead of arcane like it does currently. The third trait line could then potentially be Air, making use of Fresh Air for more of a focus on damage.

Edit: Remember the low healing of water without healing power on the likely amulet choice of Paladin’s, would be supplemented by the fact that auras can heal for ~800 with no healing power, and the shout heal extends to allies which was something the old D/D lacked, so the healing support will definitely still be there in the more support oriented build of Tempest/Water/Arcane. Healing would be less with the other build option, but focus offers more defenses so it would have projectile hate, invulnerability, and of course defense through offensive pressure with Air and more damage.

Coolguy.8702:

And nerf it down to 33%, its so kittening broken and reaper takes it to another lvl…

I was actually surprised that they did not say they would do this. They may yet do it, though; they only gave us a preview.

I actually really liked the map ping system implemented in Heroes of the Storm, and wished there was a similar implementation for conquest on GW2. I think this sort of system - with notification sounds to draw attention to it - would be better than predictive text.

Edit: I should probably elaborate since not everyone will know of it. When you would ping the map - hold a key and click on the minimap - instead of just a circle appearing, a small interface appears tightly around your cursor inside the bounds of the minimap. This interface consists of five buttons: one where you clicked which will close the interface, cancelling the ping, and one above, below, to the right and to the left of the cursor. Each of the other four buttons would create a ping message and a notification sound alerting allies of the message on the minimap. On Heroes of the Storm, these messages are "danger," "retreat," "defend." There is also a general ping, but if that general ping is made over an objective, it automatically becomes an "attack" message, alerting allies that that player wants to attack whatever it is. A player would create the ping for the act they want to perform.

In addition to the minimap symbol and alert sound, for pings that contain a message (attack, defend, retreat or danger), the ping would also create a small message, saying which player made the ping, and what they want to do, for example - moving into a GW2 PvP scenario now - if I anticipated crossers on the beach of forest, and I pinged "danger" on the beach, a danger symbol would appear on the beach, an alert would sound, and in small text it would say "Impact warns of danger."

This would be awesome to have in GW2, especially the sound so allies can respond to the ping. Often, pings go missed.

I like the draw feature GW2 has for its minimap, because it can more accurately display what you want. For example, if you want to push a point, drawing can be used to indicate who you want to go there or which point to rotate from. Unfortunately, drawing alone can be easy to misinterpret. Following a good ping system with drawing would be very good for communication.

rchu.8945:

echo.2053:

Phantaram.4816:

So how is shatter mesmer currently balanced? By being weak outside of those things. Too weak to be used at the moment. The truth is it was too weak before the expansion too but not weak enough that you couldn’t take it and reap the benefits of moa and portal. If the enemy team had anything that could take advantage of the fragility of the mesmer (burn guard, thief, etc) and do it well then the mesmer would get shut down and the 2 powerful utilities it brought wouldn’t even be used.

It’s a tough thing to say but it would probably be healthier for the game if Portal and Moa were removed. If this happened there’d be no problems in bringing the mesmer back up to par with everyone cause it doesn’t have these 2 extremely powerful abilities.

Funny - portal and moa being powerful but number of times considered taking mesmer over other class in tournament ..... lacking.

This.

Especially coming from a player that mains a Ele that dominated meta for a long time, he sure has some delusion that those 2 elites really made a difference on the competitive level, before the bunker meta is a thing.

What. Portal and Moa have been used at a competitive level and made a huge difference in the matches. Portal plays bring a lot of flexibility and strategic potential, and Moa countered transformations like rampage and shroud, prevented banner revives, and of course nerfed a tank into a squishy bird to be burst down.

Maxodon.5243:

I just can’t see such a build being viable.
It doesn’t have enough damage to finish a fight quickly so it’s useless as a +1er.
That means, with bunker Mesmer destroyed aswell, the only role left for it would be some kind of bruiser.
But if you take domination, illusions and chronomancer, which are the trait lines that would give mesmers reaper-like abilities, the Mesmer would have very little to 0 condi cleanse, since it doesn’t take inspiration, no stability and almost no protection, since it can’t take chaos.
This leads to the Mesmer being weak to direct damage, cc and condition damage with barely any defense that doesn’t prevent holding a point.
Also remember that you can’t fit dueling into that build, so you won’t have frequent and high access to illusion, which leads to less boon removal and damaging conditions.
And with how scepter is right now, you will barely make any impact on teamfights with it.
The only way left to help support you team in fights is elites, which weren’t enough to keep shatter Mesmer in the meta and alacrity which was nerfed by around 50%.
In the end this just sounds like a roamer with multiple bad matchups that can’t hold a point and will have even less value in teamfights, why would anyone play something like that?

To continue playing their preferred class, of course. People still opt to play warrior instead of power revenant in this meta simply because they prefer it. I don’t know how it would fare for sure because we don’t know all the changes yet. I can say that no stability can be somewhat covered by access to distortion, and condi cleanse would come from the healing well only, leaving them extremely vulnerable to conditions, but it is a team game, and we don’t even know how much condi pressure there will be in the meta when things settle after the patch. Reaper would still be stronger by far in a 1 to 1 comparison for sure, but that doesn’t stop my curious and creative nature from trying to think of possibilities.

There is potential for a mesmer to play a bit like a necro, except with daze instead of fear, slow instead of chill, boon removal instead of corrupt, and portal. To keep up with the boon removal it’d need illusions for cd reduction, and scepter for the clone generation. Scepter and illusions are condi-focused, and you can take defensive stats easier with condi damage as well. Scepter also provides a block. It’d need control, so as much cc as it can which means diversion hitting 5 targets, mantra of distraction and gravity well. Shield because it has a block and cc, staff because of the leap in ethereal fields for survival, low cd clone generation, and of course chaos storm for cc. Chrono provides a trait to inflict slow when interrupting a foe, so it’d run chrono with that trait and to access gravity well, and to complement them, the slow well and the heal well to provide quickness, and chrono runes to capitalise on that, and of course, finally, portal.

It wouldn’t have as much pressure as a necro, but it’d have lots of confusion, torment, and probably slow (interrupt based), it’d still have power block and AoE boon removal albeit less effective than a necro, and the main reason for trying to make it viable: portal. It’d be interesting to see if something like this does get tried and just how effective it can be. I think it’d be more of a stubborn attempt to remain somewhat useful, though.

Edit: A variation would be to run alacrity on wells instead of slow on interrupt. Interruption requires timing, so alacrity on wells is easier, but how effective it’d be is up for debate following its 50% nerf.

Anyone that isn’t blinding themselves with hope will realise this is true. Unless the bunker mesmer can retain some support while gaining more damage and control abilities, such as though distraction mantra, gravity well, AoE daze on diversion, etc. Shatter mesmer will be the only build that has a hope of remaining viable. Unfortunately for focusing on control, there is a lot of stability around. Reapers may be effective enough at removing it, but a reaper and mesmer combination would be weaker than a reaper and thief combination, so unless teams move away from 3 support-capable classes to 2, and 3 offensive builds instead, there isn’t much point to mesmer outside of trying desperately to make it work.

While shatter mesmer still brings portal, which is a valuable asset, it needs to be able to bring something to the fight it is in. Shatter mesmer will be at the bottom of the "counter pressure chain." Thieves will shut it down again, and will require counter pressuring to protect the mesmer by another thief, an engi, necro or revenant, each of which can counter pressure each other to protect an ally.

Even if the meta goes back toward "burst" over high sustained damage, shatter mesmer would need a lot of stealth, running, and kiting to be viable. This would mean needing to run PU again, which means dropping an important line, losing damage and utility. If it doesn’t have enough burst, it can’t stand against reapers corrupting their boons every 3rd auto attack, unless they build for condition cleanse as well, which results in losing even more of their damage specialisation, perhaps even reverting to the old shatter mesmer variant of Dueling/Inspiration/Chaos. Furthermore, it would need to rely on a lot of support, and ele has been nerfed, and energy sigil nerf is equates to a clone lost every 10s.

There is a chance the Duel/Insp/Chaos build would have enough damage given the nerf to tank amulets, but new amulets have been added with defensive stats which, combined with the survival abilities brought with the elite specs and revenant, probably will be enough to shrug off such a build.

Roaming-wise, shatter mesmer can’t. Not alone. Being caught off point by a necro, thief or revenant is game over. It needs to be baby-sat, which means it can’t reliably +1. Any fight a mesmer needs to rotate to would have to be a +2 so the mesmer can make it there - unless it used portal of course.

In the end, a necro or revenant would likely just be a better pick. Not a thief, because thieves will be in regardless!

Too many passive defenses, most of which automatically and unskillfully punish the one that managed to land their ability, combined with stacking damage mitigation effects, and plentiful block and evade skills made this change necessary to stop those classes from taking advantage of something that wasn’t meant for them. I’d rather see those passive defenses removed than energy sigil nerfed, but it’s clear ANet loves giving passive defenses too much, and players love picking them too much, so something else had to go instead.

Yeah. Why should revenants not be allowed to face roll vs necro. It’s not fair to take away insta cast on skill which makes all condi ticks heal, or reduce access to resistance so they can’t skillfully ignore conditions as much. You actually want me to have to use my dodges to avoid certain skills instead of used randomly to add some style to my moves or to be spammed in chain to stay alive like a tank with glassy stats? Come on, active play is so unskillful.

Edit: Oh, and Mallyx rev has hardly any pressure. It only had a place because it has boon removal and more survivability than necro in a bunker meta. Necro buff or not, Mallyx is done, and I won’t miss it.

True. DH is in a bad spot. Why is that?

• Hard countered by D/F tempests.
• It’s a direct damage class in a meta focused around sustain, survival, and control.
• What does it actually bring to a team fight?
  • It can kill thieves.
  • It can cleave downed very well.
• Why aren’t what it brings to a team fight good enough to warrant taking one?
  • Thieves aren’t in the meta.
  • Quickness revives.

Do you see?

• Tempests are being hit hard by the removal of celestial, and their low health pool making clerics unviable, especially with reapers having a lot more condi pressure now from corruption on scepter auto attack. This means the place of a hard counter to DH in the meta is being threatened.
• With amulet changes and quickness and slow no longer affecting revival and stomp, and the removal of runes of mercy and durability, poison and direct damage will once again be effective enough to make it into the meta – meaning strategies playing off of kills. This is a strategy DH can fall into.
• In every meta focusing on direct damage and playing off of kills, there have been thieves. DH counters thieves, meaning it could come into the meta like medi guard did once before due to its pressure being relevant to the strategy, felt, and it counters something else in the meta.

In light of this, the devs can’t really buff it. They don’t know how effective it will be. They know aspects of it are very strong, possibly even too strong, but they haven’t been able to be properly utilised competitively yet. Now, they might be.

Bad build or not, dealing 19k to a bunker build with one hit is bad, not to mention that much damage from a ranged ability. How can a class expect to be balanced fairly when it can do that? Things like that need to be toned down so areas lacking can be toned up.

I’m also still annoyed to see reckless dodge hit that high. It has always been far too strong for an adept minor.

Active skill... When you’re an ele switching attunements or an engi equipping a kit regularly just to take full advantage of it so they can random dodge one more time - not to gain a dodge when needed - is not active skill.

The only three classes that it was "good for," in terms of both those classes and the game, were thief, and shatter mesmer - which didn’t even use it on both weapon sets - and necro. Unfortunately, tanks using that sigil hurt those classes more than it does were no class to have it. Good change. I don’t know if they were already considering it before I suggested it, but I’d love to take credit for it. I suggested it last year too.

Oh, and before anyone points and says "Tank! You bias because you can just eat the damage:" thief, shatter mesmer, and necro also happen to be the only classes/builds I play.

Ithilwen.1529:

That is a huge “KITTEN YOU” aimed right at Mesmer. Combined with Well of precog now being basically worthless ( auto attacks will destroy the aegis almost instantly ) It makes Chronomancer essentially defenseless to thieves. Who, btw, are getting a major damage upgrade.

So I ask again, ANET.. why do you hate Mesmers?

The block no longer defends against the elite. That doesn’t mean it can’t be used to block regular attacks, or that the stun can’t be dodged or evaded.

It’s not like basilisk venom can counter the block either… A 1 sec block can’t be countered by an unblockable interrupt with a 1 sec cast time.