Guild Wars 2

@Zoso

It makes perfect sense. Balance implies that all classes are relatively equal in power. It would have to be so because the profession mix in each match is more or less random.

Hence, having one class in a position to consistently beat another is antithetical to balance.

I don’t honestly think a “hard counter” as it’s been defined here should exist. That’s antithetical to the idea of “balance.”

Having said that, I am a not-so-great Mesmer and I can get a d/d ele, by loading them with confusion.

I did try playing sword/sword and scepter/sword using the blocks and evades to proc clones and phants.

It kinda worked. The problem with this approach is that there’s really only one trait for Mesmer that works on evade, [Mental Defense], and it has a 20 second internal cooldown.

GW2 seems to strongly favor physical skills over cerebral. In my opinion, that’s sad.

There’s no such thing as being able to “safely” fight, or at least there shouldn’t be.

That being said, I have a fair shot against d/d Elementalist on condi shatter Mesmer.

A d/d ele will go down if you can sustain conditions or stun them. They are dependent on a rotation. Break the rotation, break the ele.

I started in GW2 but have recently been playing GW1. It’s mostly out of; interest in the history of Mesmers, curiosity and a desire to win that neat dragon sword.

Along the way, I have seen some interesting differences.

From a relatively new player’s perspective, I wondered where all the dodges and other physical skills were. It felt weird at first. Now I’m coming to realize that it’s about management, rather than reaction speed.

That makes a huge difference. I think ANET could benefit by bringing some of that style back. The play in GW1 feels much more skill based. It’s not about how fast you can hit that mouse button, in fact spamming will get you killed quick.

How can that be accomplished? I think longer and more intricate keypress combinations are not a good approach. It feeds right back into the physical mode.

Interrupt in GW2 has great potential, but it’s hampered by the speed things happen.

The recent condi buff is a step toward more skill and less “press 2” style play.

So my suggestion is this; Make the windows for both interrupt and block larger. Make skills have a casting time, so that they can be interrupted. This will make those two play methods more workable. It will also force players to consider wether to use a skill or not and when. This is already in the current game to an extent.
With the long cast time, I need to be cautious when I cast my [Signet of Humility]. The target may become obscured or invisible or otherwise unavailable ( or I might be interrupted ) by the time my cast is done.

Historically, Mesmers have been underpowered since the last huge confusion nerf 2+ years ago.

As a Mesmer main, I’m empowered by others being silly.

The claim has been made that a Mesmer should be revealed if a phantasm does damage.

A ranger isn’t revealed when her pet attacks. Why should a Mesmer be?

An Engineer is not revealed when her turrets attack.

A thief is not revealed when her thieves guild attacks.

The requests that are being made for major nerfs simply aren’t logical. It’s not my fault if a player fails to dodge or fails to understand the game mechanics. It is the enemy players fault.

It boils down to this; “Learn To Play.”

Perhaps not, but the potential might very well make them meta. I am all for creative play and for trying to improve the game.

I’m not for creating game breaking loopholes. This looks like it could easily be one.

VOIP has very well known security and privacy issues. A popular provider who’s name rhymes with gripe is infamous for sharing online conversations with the government.
So, no I’d definitely not like to see this in – game as a regular feature.

PVP/FoTM only gear? Yes if it doesn’t look like a legendary. I busted my kitten to build my legendary. Why should pvp’ers get it almost free by comparison?

Majority rules sounds all well and good. There is also something called the “Tyrrany of the Majority.” It would be all too easy for a guild or otherwise organized team to vote as a block and keep getting Courtyard for example. This just has too much exploit potential. Besides, what do you do if two voting blocks choose two different maps? 5-5?
This idea simply isn’t well thought out.

I disagree with it because of experience in pvp. Team ups are already pretty common.
It’s not at all unusual to see two rangers running together. ( with very long term CC from their two entangles and two wolves and two hounds ) Now combine that with your suggestion and you have an insta nuke.

Teamups are already very much a thing. I don’t think that’s a legitimate cause to buff Engineer.

Rangers are already too powerful. The combination would be a game breaker. Engineer seems to be in a good place atm, why not leave it there?

I definitely don’t support “majority rules” map voting. The first thing that would happen is a guild would make a 5 power ranger team and vote as a block for courtyard everytime.

The potential for abuse is mind boggling.

As to playing pve while queue’d pvp.. yeah right. Are people likely to leave a world boss and the associated loot when their queue pops? Not a chance. The level of queue failure and wait times would be an order of magnitude higher.

So essentially you want Engineer walls from flamethrower to be fire fields? I don’t know enough about engi to comment directly on that.

A tangential comment though; Rangers all ready have too kitten much. I suspect the team up would be thoroughly disgusting and make them even more easy mode than they are. So, on that basis, I’d oppose this idea.

To my mind, thinking about class mechanics first is actually backward. Play the class you like and want to play. If you start there, you can make any current class in the game work one way or the other.

If you choose a class you like, you’re more likely to stick with it and become good with it.

I will role play when I get the chance, being an old school D&D player.

At least a few players choose their class and race based on the role they’d like to play. I don’t mean just combat mechanics, socially as well.

In my case, Mesmer is the class I want to play.. First because of the style and the magic that captures my imagination. Second because of the lore. Gwen Thackeray , Lady Wi, Kasmeer Meade and Queen Jenna are all Mesmers. Last because of the PvP combat potential and style.

So, yes to that extent some of us role play.

@Trevor Boyer

Once again, I return to you what you have said to me more than once on forum;

Learn to play.

ANET has already severely nerfed Mesmer. It would be better to train and play well than to complain.

Let’s get back on the topic of warriors, please.

Last time I estimated, the price of BiFrost was close to 300 USD. With the price of Legendaries and precursors so ridiculous, I can see why people would be pretty angry to see reasonably priced PvP skins.

I built Rodgort, mainly because I like the skin. Someone dumped the precursor on the TP for 70 gold. Completing the map took quite a bit of time. Mastering two separate professions and materials probably cost better than 1500 gold before I was done. So, yeah.. having invested that much to own a legendary, I’d be kittened to see them proliferate.

disclaimer I did not buy any of that gold. It came from playing the game, mainly dungeons.

The good news is; If and when HoT is released, Legendary crafting becomes available. The prices on precursors may drop to something closer to reasonable. You can craft your legendary.

@Trevor Boyer; I would draw your attention to the fact that after the LongBow buff we were seeing 5 man ranger teams on a regular basis. You were among those defending rangers at the time.

Every time there’s something new and not yet well understood, you’re going to see a lot of them for a while. I’ve seen my share of all ranger teams and all hambow warrior teams.

Inasmuch as you defended 5 man ranger teams, I don’t see where you have grounds to complain about an uptick in Mesmers and Elementalists.

That being said;

At least one of the posters here claiming a high percentage of Mesmer/ Ele is a well known hater of Mesmers and Ranger apologist.

I’m seeing most classes. Not as many engis seem to show up but the ones who do are tough.

The statement that Mesmer was never underpowered goes against years of forum posts. I’m sorry, that assertion is just plain wrong. That’s pure sophism.

I own at least one 80 in every class and that’s after deleting several ’toons.

In truth I find D/D ele very difficult to play and exhausting. The work required to keep that lovely boon stack is real.

The ele should be rewarded for good game play if they can do it.

As to Mesmer being “grossly overpowered” I’ll return to you what you said to me about longbow rangers pre – patch; “Learn To Play.”

@Trevor Boyer. Mesmer has already suffered huge nerfs. Ele has been hit as well with changes.

If I recall correctly you were the ranger calling for even more buffs on pets and longbow. Be that as it may;

Mesmer is very squishy as is Ele. It’s not my fault that players fail to dodge a shatter. It’s not the Ele’s fault that players aren’t tuned in enough to interrupt their cycles.

Mesmer has already gotten a hard beating from the nerf bat, time to practice and get better.

I suspect the basic reason quitters aren’t punished is that it would need a human monitor. That would be an expensive full time employee.

Suppose there was a dominant player/class as in the last seasonal tournament.

Dishonor could be abused to keep that person or class out of matches. This is the same reason I don’t support being able to blacklist specific players from being matched with you.

Dishonorable became a problem for a little while there. I got it once because I was DC ing through no fault of my own.

That really kittened me off.

I do agree that regular quitting should be punished. One player in particular quits without fail in every match he participates in, unless his team is clearly dominant. He’ll then go on map chat and claim the team isn’t good enough for him.

I have to admit. Warrior is looking a bit weak in PvP at the moment. On one hand, it’s nice after the long reign of the HamBow. On the other.. Warriors went from the top of the food chain to the lower middle. “Oh, that had to hurt!”

Mesmer has suffered a huge round of nerfs. the OP really is crying at this point. Stealth doesn’t stun break most of the time, nor does it protect from aoe.

In addition, long Mesmer stealth means giving up a lot of damage. This is a learn to play issue.

Mesmer was underpowered for years. As a result, the players that stayed needed to be good to survive at all. Now with some parity in power, the thieves and warriors are astounded that their free auto kill ( any Mesmer ) is gone. Mesmer was the first to be nerfed and has gotten multiple rounds of nerfs.

OP, you are really just crying at this point.

Wrong. Until just recently I frequently proc’d 2 or 3 iDefenders and then shattered them as if they were clones. Playing sword/sword and scepter/torch for a total of 4 block/evades. Each of those blocks and evades summoning an iDefender.

I could alternate this with regular clones and heal on shatter.

Now you begin to see just how big a hit this is.

I don’t agree for two basic reasons;

When I have multiple defenders, one dying doesn’t end the damage mitigation.

Extra iDefenders can function as tougher clones. As I say, most players will just keep hitting into a block. This means that before ANET nerfed it, you could proc iDefenders and use them as superior clones.

I was essentially playing a phantasm shatter build.

This is actually a very large nerf in disguise, or at least not noticed.

I think you need to apply a little more imagination. We are Mesmers after all. As a close friend likes to say of she and I, “we think so far out of the box, we don’t even own a box.”

As to poor play, criminal waste of resources and calling me “special”… Well rhetoric and name calling is meaningless.

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

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

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

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

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

Mental Defense refuses to proc more than one iDefender. That wasn’t the case before and it hurts my defense very badly.

This may be a heavy undocumented nerf.

I’d like to see capes too. I’d grind for that, for sure.

I recovered the Sword in the Font of Rhand. In so doing, I temporarily gained Warrior skills, similar to the old GW1 thing where you tried various secondary professions before choosing.

That was cute and clever, ANET. There ought to be more of this. I ended up with a better concept of how Warrior plays.

Now set up a similar Mesmer staff. That might contribute to a better understanding and less complaints.

This is starting to look very much like the OP is trying to advertise an outside business on forums.

I’m reasonably sure that’s not appropriate.

The complaining about Mesmer is OP. Making the blinds dodge-able was already a huge nerf.

Anet left Mesmer under powered so long that only people who really wanted to play the class hung around. Now, with some parity we find ourselves winning fights.

The other thing is that people became convinced that Mesmer was supposed to be under powered. We could be chopped all the way back to the days of the last huge confusion nerf ( where Mesmer was made virtually useless ) and people would still whine bitterly on forum every time they lost to a Mesmer.

The stuns and shatters are avoidable. IT JUST REQUIRES A BIT OF GAME SKILL It’s time to learn to play.

Organized play is another example of the zerg mentality. That’s the primary reason I won’t go to WvW. It’s great for the side with a good team.

I don’t come to GW2 to be a 4v1 target dummy. It’s stupid and it’s not fun to have a guild team against pugs where I’m spending a whole match badly out numbered.

That’s why there are so few people on at night that I often see the same people 3 matches in a row. Newcomers get powerslammned and leave. Solo players like myself get power slammed and wonder why they are wasting there time.

I’ve had 7 straight losses to teams so far tonight, the most recent one by over 400 points.

This is just stupidity. I can’t think of a faster way to drive people out of PvP.

Mesmer was under powered for years. Now, we can stand and fight. People just need to learn to play, really.

I’m still extremely squishy and shatters still take skill to land. Yes I have some defense now instead of having to Leroy and hope I got you first.

If it took 5 minutes to kill an outnumbered Ele, her or his attackers were doing it wrong. I can 1v1 an Ele in a normal timespan. If I play well I win, if not, I lose.

That’s kinda how it’s ’sposed to work.

@SlayerSixx

Now that is hypocrisy. You just lectured me about some specs being strong. Then you turned around and criticized me claiming I play a too strong spec.

On the one hand you tell me some specs are strong and to live with it, yet you seem unable to follow your own advice in the case of Mesmers.

Is it simply that you got surprised by a Mesmer and are salty about it? I suggest you consider your responses better.

D/D ele has no range and is a sitting duck to interrupts, stuns, dazes and condi stacks.

I have to admit, I’m no fan of ele, but they are not OP at the moment in my opinion.

The minions are actually pretty dumb and can be kited. They also don’t defend themselves much at all.

Personally, I ignore the minions and zero in on the necro. If I notice a coterie of Minions strung out behind a necro that’s travelling, I will attack the Flesh Golem to kitten them a bit.

She will respond to that;

The claim that I’m a hypocrite is based on an implied claim that Mesmer is too powerful.
If that premise is accepted, then I am being accused of hypocrisy for playing a too powerful class and complaining about another class as too powerful.

I take issue with that on two counts;

Mesmer isn’t too powerful. It’s finally competitive which has upset the pecking order.

Second; I did not call Engineer OP. I said that Engineer heal and boon conversion is too strong.

I did, after all, defeat that Engineer on our second encounter albeit with difficulty.

I don’t believe Ele’s are OP at the moment. They are vulnerable. Stuns and dazes kitten an ele. They cannot withstand sustained conditions for long at all.

It’s true that they do a lot of upfront damage. It’s a classic “zerker” scenario. They have to get you fast or bail. Hound them and break their rotations, they are done.

@Diemos

So, essentially you advise that any build focused on conditions should counterplay by not attacking Engineers.

What you are saying simply does not make sense. I suggest you think it through some more.

The key to beating D/D ele is to interrupt the cycle of might building. Also I can snipe one on Mesmer by keeping enough condi to overcome the heal. It takes a while but if you can maintain a few stacks, they will go down.

A Thief with Shortbow 4 might make life quite miserable for an ele on point. ( I run a venom share Thief in pve. I suspect she would be an Ele killer in the hands of a better player. )

Confusion in particular works against Ele’s because you know they need to keep taking actions and that increases the damage.

The Ele needs to cycle through a series of fairly specific actions. Nail them with a good interrupt and/or force them to stay in water longer by damage.

I die most 1v1’s vs an ele because the dps will kill me on my first mistake. Still, they do have a vulnerability in that they need to keep their rotation up or die.

I find d/d Ele’s hard, but not impossible to beat. The key is to keep enough condition on them to overcome the heal and kite long enough for it to take effect. Interrupts also kitten an ele nicely.

I lose most 1v1 fights against an Ele, unless I get the drop on them. ( playing condition or shatter Mesmer ) but that’s because of the dps they put out, as opposed to the sustain.

Then I suspect some bug. I’m seeing engineers maintaining large boon stacks and coming through fights almost undamaged on a fairly consistent basis.

It is simply not appropriate to build a class that benefits from conditions to that extent.

Actually I was playing power shatter and that’s beside the point. Again, despite your sophistry;

Engineer condition conversion is happening way too fast. Engineers are are able to convert conditions so fast that it actually benefits them to be hit with conditions.

In addition they heal too fast and are finishing fights with full health on a consistent basis.

Finally, I did kill that engi

I’m seeing shield/pistol condi engis ( using elixir gun kit ) with ridiculous heal and damage mitigation. They frequently end the fight with full health. Conditions are converted almost constantly.

That’s just totally unfair. The conditions converting to boons is happening so fast that condis are actually helping rather than hurting the engi.

It’s time for Engineers to have normal power levels.

The real deal is simple. BD stops the run-in-and-burst-for-instant-dead-mesmer “mechanic.” Thieves and Warriors are no doubt especially upset that they actually have to play against a Mesmer with BD.

Sounds like the OP got stomped by a Mesmer. L2P folks.

My comp and internet connections are well within bounds recommended. My game consistently crashes on map transfer to Forest of Niflhel.

THIS IS NOT A CONNECTION OR COMPUTER ISSUE.

I don’t find MM necros anywhere near as tough as the old turret engi. The minions suck at choosing targets and they don’t defend much at all.

I can’t see any reason to think the build is OP or lacking in skill. The skill is in herding dumb pets and/or conjuring them at the right time.