Guild Wars 2

Gwaihir.1745:

Ithilwen.1529:

ANET gave away alacrity as it did confusion and Moa.. thereby invalidating an entire HoT specialization, the Chronomancer.

This is a joke right? You paid for a new specialization.. but we’ve decided to take it away from you.. because reasons.

Tired of your qq threads bud. I didn’t see the guardian community coming out in force to qq years ago the moment another class gained access to stability.

Stability was not the primary thrust and signature ability of Guardian. Let’s not forget that ANET also gave away confusion and Moa.. both supposedly unique to Mesmer.

The devs said they’d be online to discuss the changes. They are not here.

ANET more-or-less invalidated the entire Chronomancer specialization. Revenats are now chronomancers too.

I find that deeply insulting and on top of that.. the change didn’t actually help rev much.

All hail the PvP lord DH.

Another promise not kept. Another hit to Mesmer. I am totally not surprised.

I’m also not surprised that the devs don’t dare show up on forum. That was promised also.

ANET gave away alacrity as it did confusion and Moa.. thereby invalidating an entire HoT specialization, the Chronomancer.

This is a joke right? You paid for a new specialization.. but we’ve decided to take it away from you.. because reasons.

The chronomancer specialization is specifically about alacrity.

By handimng it out to other classes, ANET invalidated an entire HoT specialization, It is really not OK to keep trashing one specific class. I paid good money (twice ) for HoT because I hoped for a new Mesmer specialization.

Now it’s pulled out from under us… again.

I’m apoplectic. ANET has once again given away Mesmer’s signature ability.

First confusion, then Moa and now alacrity. By giving alacrity to Revenant … anet more-or-less invalidated the Chronomancer specialization.

I’d like anet to explain there apparent bias against Mesmer.

We were promised a thread to talk to the Devs. Where is it?

Why did you more or less destroy Chronomancer by giving it’s signature ability to Revenants?

Why did anet give away confusion and Moa?

ANET has once again devalued Mesmer.

Revenant now has ALACRITY!

What then is the point of Chronomancer please?

I’m beside myself… this is almost beyond bearing.. Confusion, Moa and now Alacrity given away like candy.

No Mesmer may not have a unique skill or place in the game.

That’s kind of my point folks. There’s no reward for playing a glass cannon build. That’s why everybody runs the same semi- bunker , bland and middle-of-the-road build.

It’s also why classes like DH and War dominate the queues.

Pyriall.1683:

@Ithilwen.1529-Why would you assume sarcasm? Is it because the build, when played correctly, contradicts your narrative? Mantra Mesmer does a ridiculous amount of burst with a very short cool down between burst cycles. AND can be done from stealth. It will global most builds that do not have an immunity and more often ones that do not proc an auto immunity like Defy Pain and Self-Regulating Defenses.

Please do post that build. I don’t think it exists.. but I’d be happy to test the idea. I thought you were sarcastic because your claim sounded, well, chimerical.

Again, please post that build, I’d love to try it.

Mesmer.

I liked Illusionist in D&D too. there’s something compelling about the mental magic style. I also like the entertainer/Nobility vibe that goes along with the class.

Thief

What can I say? I love being a Ninja.

I just think there will be some crippling change to Mesmer. perhaps DH is now able to moa.

I can justify it with the example of the leaderboard sniping last season. This community has repeatedly demonstrated that it can and will exploit any loophole.

As to your second statement: “People play pvp to win because their (sic) score means nothing when they lose.” Exactly. This proposal would remove that barrier and reward things like point camping regardless of win or loss.

No. If that were the system, people would stop playing the game and trade caps and decaps to boost each other’s rating. Sad but true.

Pyriall.1683:

Is this thread serious? Mantra Mesmer can global anything that doesn’t proc an immunity. Not to mention their burst potential is on such a short cool down. That’s as high risk and high reward as you can get.

I have to assume you are sarcastic here?

Yes I am.. I run a razor naga epic and a razer tartarus. The tartarus was at the suggestion of the community.

And yes, I run most of the functions with the 15 mouse controls on my right hand.

As to running DH and / or War: Those classes don’t really suit my personality or taste. I’d be handicapping my team pretty badly as well, since I have little experience with either class.

A former ANET employee ,( who shall remain un named, ) had a habit of making promises and not keeping them.

I’m not the least bit surprised that anet is being conservative about announcements now.

I have to admit that’s kinda edgy. Still we have a kneel animation and you can rp the rest.

I fully expect anet to kick Mesmer out of serious PvP with some nuke nerf. There will be some sop with a buff to focus or something.

With respect to point 5. the devs have already announced they have fixed that. Volatility will no longer increase to prevent that exploit.

And it still is.

I watched your video. In my opinion WvW died because the populations were vastly unbalanced.

I was once a passionate WvW player, but it got boring seeing a blob coming at me and being outnumbered 20-1 , yet again.

I came to PvP hoping for more balanced play. Sadly.. that hasn’t really worked out either.

I hear your enthusiasm for teams, but I don’t see it working out in PvP for the time being. 4 seasons of deliberately unbalanced matches drove too many people away.

See the common theme here? No one likes to get hammered and feel they didn’t have a fair chance. I hope that ANET takes that to heart.

My point is that there is no reward for playing other than the safe “meta” choice. This is the reason for excessive queue stacks and for the current chorus of cries to nerf DH and war + engie.

The game is narrowing and that’s not healthy. This is not a two dimensional video game where you can present 3-5 easily balanced fixed builds with at best.. perhaps 5 combos.

Yes, that would be easy on the devs.. but this is an rpg. I see it going the way of City of Heroes which died when there was a mass exodus. PvP reached a tipping point and everyone just kind of left.

I would be horrified to carry axes as a Mesmer… There’s no elegance or subtly in such a choice.

I have never and still do not want to be what Kasmeer called an “aromatic warrior.”

I’d much prefer daggers or some similar exotic weapon. How about battle fans? Even tonfun would be better than axes.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Easy steps to make WvW great again!

You lost me right there. That phrase turned off my attention instantly.

I find that attitude… “disheartening.” What, then, is the point of my beloved Mesmer?

After all I could necro and have a crowd of clones that will explode on death. I’d even have a personal portal.

I could play a ranger and be a lot tankier with a much smarter and tougher “phantasm.”

I could engi and moa people to my heart’s content.

All three of those choices would have a significantly better survivability and likely better damage.

Taking risk is the point of gaming. It is the heart and soul of playing a “hero.” Sadly, the community has largely taken up the idea of minimizing risk and maximizing gain.. even at the cost of diminishing the game.

And that is why the games are boring and the queues are stacked with DH, War and Engie.

Perhaps, but no one would run a glass warrior. They’d be roadkill in a heartbeat. that’s part of the point I’m making.

vesica tempestas.1563:

gw niko.1049:

I just want to point 2 things.

snip

Things will constantly evolve and changing in a healthy mmo, this is as it should be, and as long as i see this and understand why changes are made then I can still have fun (faster balance passes should be high priority though).

You were unhappy 2 years ago with pvp, and your still unhapppy 2 years on, sometimes a gamestyle just does not suit people. GW2 spvp is not going to give you what you want by the look of things, its not that style of game, indeed many player revel in the build and role diversity you get annoyed at – especially if you are prepared to compromise on optimization for builds you enjoy as a player. Look at GW1, the PVP was so good because of the constant build and role setups you could play with and many hope GW2 will make strides in this area.

Interesting that you make the comparison with GW1. In that game we have to make decisions. We cannot choose to be a heal tank AND a heavy damage dealer.

That, in my opinion, is the biggest current issue with the game.

In the current PvP environment, High risk is rewarded primarily by dying more often.

I play a Mesmer because I like to play Mesmer. By doing so, I have to accept that I’m gonna get hammered more often. The trouble with that is that it’s really not rewarded with the chance to make that big play.

A riskier and squishier profession should be rewarded with some outstanding ability.That could be high dps ( one of the lowest risks professions currently has the highest dps ) It could be superior mobility and/or stealth.

There is one (core) Mesmer ability that is not at least partly replicated by other classes.

Most classes have short range teleports or leaps. The majority of classes have some form of stealth.

As it is, there’s really not much point in playing squishier builds because the easier builds can do what you can anyway and probably do it better and easier.

And that is why the queues are stacked with DH, War, Engie.

Now that’s not true. I can defeat a DH and ( with a little luck ) a warrior. The real issue is that I have to work a lot harder at it on Mesmer. I have much less margin for error.

A warrior has the heal, immunity and dps to cover a lot of small errors in play and still come off the winner.

InB4 the thread gets locked. Yes, you’re right, everyone has too much capability. There are no clearly defined roles. Sadly, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

5 man teams make people look and feel better than they are, farming solos. Sorry, I guess that must feel good, but I’m not willing to play punching bag for someone else’s jollies.

The notion that Condi is new or not intended as a main mechanic is patently false. The GW 1 Warrior learns to create “deep wounds” in there first minutes in the game.

Hexes are nothing if not conditions.

A number of classes and builds trade on conditions and would be out of the game if we returned to the old system of stack caps. It is wise to carry and use condi clear even though, yes, it will reduce your dps a bit.

I’m really not good at DH, War etc. I main Mesmer because I like it and it’s the class I do best with.

Switching classes to counter a comp would be counterproductive for me. Here again, class locking would permit profession MMR. Then I could switch to another class without screwing over my team.

Boonshare or interrupt Mesmer is not OP. They are edging toward unicorn status.

The reality is that DH is way overplayed though. It’s rare for me to see a match without one.

It’s not the class that’s OP it’s the stacking. Sadly, ANET doesn’t seem inclined to do anything about that.

Mesmer has experienced a long series of nerfs, some of them extreme. I came in just as the huge glamour nerf was made. Then tried to play during the year + that we were trash tier.

Mesmer design is actually pretty good. The trouble is that almost every play mode has been nerfed into non viability.

I’d love to play a phantasm build. That’s not gonna happen in a pvp environment. Against PvE bosses? Sure but not PvP. The Phantasms are too slow and too delicate.

PU was trashed.

Clone Death was removed entirely from the game.

Interrupt might work for an extremely skilled Mesmer but it’s not generally a thing.

Retaliation was nerfed to uselessness even though that’s one of the first skills taught a Mesmer in GW 1.

Boon Share and Alacrity Support have both been cut back too far to use in most cases.

Power shatter could be a thing with the superspeed, but there’s very little sustain.

ANET has reduced the options to one, ( or two if you are skilled in Power Shatter.) The problem isn’t design, it’s years of excessive nerfs.

The balance team needs to stop reacting to people not knowing how to play against Mesmer and take a more objective approach.

@OriOri

SoI is dead necessary for survival and you know it. Our major source of condi removal and, to a lesser extent, healing is shattering.

Slow the shatters, kill Mesmer entirely for PvP.

Ori.. you have been advocating for that change to Phantasms. It would require a major rework of the class. I totally disagree with you on it.

Be that as it may, please do not advocate for nerfs that would be a disaster as the class stands.

It’s a pleasure to play GW 1 and find the back references for things in GW 2. In this case, I’m in Kamadan ( Jewel of Istan ) watching purple butterfly fireworks. I suspect this is the origin of Mesmer butterflies. It is nearly identical.

Purple of course is the color of Chaos.

BadMed.3846:

Ithilwen.1529:

A warrior has a much higher average speed.

So then here’s the issue. For ranged class, their walking speed is too slow and the Warrior with a GS can slow them down further and catch them with the traited speed boost. Potentially reducing the speed boost % offers a solution. However, it it goes too low, it will become very hard for a Warrior to catch ranged classes. That’s the nature of this game. Ranged need to be able to smartly disengage and melee need to be able to get in close range.

In terms of on point damage and ability to pin down ranged there, I don’t think there’s any issue. If you are ranged, you can’t expect to fight a warrior head on. Defeats the purpose of the class.

Untrue. If I can’t defeat a warrior ( and I can some of the time ) it defeats the purpose of a roaming class such as Mesmer or Thief. What does it matter if I roam and can’t take a point?

This song actually fits a little better than “Shattered.” Listen to the words:

Nuke level nerfs somewhere

Mesmer doesn’t have the sustain to get away with that. I do the same on Tempest.

Hiding classes won’t solve the issue that some classes are overplayed. 5 DH is 5 DH, hidden or not.

In my calculus for a fight… I’d most likely save the blink unless I thought I could win easily.

First, ports and blinks are long cooldown items not generally used for speed. A warrior has a much higher average speed.

Second, there is not a single place, NOT ONE, that a blink can go that is not accessible through a very quick jump or series of jumps.

Fighting a warrior without a preset port is a win or die situation, they can easily out run me and a blink, at best gives me one or 2 seconds before the war will be on me.

In most fights, I will only get time to use blink once. Wars have multiple rush and fast motion options. They are more mobile by far in an actual fight.

I have basically one option and that is to avoid ALL of the warrior’s stuns and bursts , (both of which are more effective than those of Mesmer ) wait through there period of immunity to damage, avoid there fire field heal and finally … having lasted that long, hope that I don’t get +1’d before I can down them.

Lol, don’t forget the torches. Seriously though.. I have some pointed questions I’d like to ask.

Actually, I can beat a war about 1/2 the time on Mesmer. It’s frustrating that they are the fastest class on the field and have a much better stun/burst.

This is a heavy melee class that is also mobile enough to out roam me. That doesn’t make sense.

The lack of confidence in balance and matchmaking seems to be the biggest issue here.

Here’s hoping ANET hits a home run on Tuesday.