Guild Wars 2

style.6173:

What? Mesmer is best 1v1 class. That’s not even up for debate.

Mesmer vs Thief ? No debate ?
Indeed you are right…according to top players like senso / suppcutie and helseth there is no debate. But they surprisingly do not have the same conclusion than you.
You should give them your tips.

Xaylin.1860:

Mantras. We all know that the main Mesmer types are Shatter, Phantasm, Mantra.

Oh yes mantra…i didn’t even mention it …it is so unefficient in pvp ..i forgot to think it existed
Ineed Anet buffed useless traits on unviable builds…nice job.

When we see the whole history…I still do not understand why they did manage to ruin the class to this level.
-ILeap buged since beginning
-Glamour broken in pvp
-Time warp nerfed by 50%
-No tools to manage thieves who are hardcountering mesmers (best players who left the profession)
-Condition buff ruining mesmers survivability
-Nerf on Blurred Fenzy to punish shatter mesmer taking risk on stupid hammer zergs
-Retal on feedback
-Nerf to Null field (only two buffs pers sec)
-Nerf to chaos armor (icd)
-Nerf to Staff 4 (no more protection)
-Nerf to vigor on crit => we will survive even less and be even more hardbursted by thieves (because it is known by anybody that survivability on mesmers is out of control)
I though 20 second dodging / evading on some class was the problem…this one is still not fixed.

Buffs ?
-PU => cheesy mindless and in the end unefficient at high level
-Lockdown => not competitive

Did I miss something ?

Well thank you Anet..you really did a good job.

style.6173:

Mesmer is the best 1v1 class in the game

… I heard this so many times.
But unfortunately it is not the case….and by far.
I would say that mesmer is one of the weakiest 1v1 class in the game with ele. They are indeed the only professions who have a hardcounter: thieves.
On the other hand it is not easy for them to manage other classes: necro / war / engies / ranger are far from being “piecies of cake”.

style.6173:

and can be a good point holder at anything other than the top levels of tPvP.

In other words, it is not good at hodling points.

Bacon.4918:

This thread is so over dramatic. Mesmer as a class is fine. PU gives crazy protection up-time, phantasms deal way too much damage for being AI, GS has amazing ranged dps. I’m doing fine on my mesmer in pvp.

When I see this message there was a flash in my head: “Thief spotted”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Opportunist-December-10th-Patch
Thief saying mesmers are fine should explain easily that mesmers need a hudge help.

Jormin.2761:

This is my opinion on why thief should not be nerfed further, and why it should not change. I have thought about this for very long time and I think these are the points everyone seems to miss when they call for a nerf, or start a QQ thread about Thief.

1. I am a thief
2. Please don’t touch my skills as I enjoy them
3. Easy Win / No Risk is what I am looking for
4. I don’t give a sh…. to other professions I push outside the meta
5. High ranked player like Helseth / Sensotix have no idea on how to play and all these QQ are nothing but a L2P issue

Thanks for coming

Kicast.1459:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey all,

In case you haven’t seen some of the posts I’ve already made, I’m back! I’ll be covering PvP/WvW/Balance teams for community coordination.

That’s pretty much the short version. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here!

- Allie

Dear Allie,
Welcome back.
Now that you in charge of PvP/WvW/Balance teams, can you briefly give your view on current balance situation:
- what is ok
- what needs to be adjusted
for both wvw and pvp ?

Sometimes we feel lost with the changes you (Anet) provide.
Better visibility on your (Anet) understanding of the game would be helpfull to better understand what you call “where we want the game to be…”

Nothing to share Allie ?
Maybe it is a little to soon to have a good picture….the game has drastically changed for only 8 months….
Hope we will get your views soon.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey all,

In case you haven’t seen some of the posts I’ve already made, I’m back! I’ll be covering PvP/WvW/Balance teams for community coordination.

That’s pretty much the short version. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here!

- Allie

Dear Allie,
Welcome back.
Now that you in charge of PvP/WvW/Balance teams, can you briefly give your view on current balance situation:
- what is ok
- what needs to be adjusted
for both wvw and pvp ?

Sometimes we feel lost with the changes you (Anet) provide.
Better visibility on your (Anet) understanding of the game would be helpfull to better understand what you call “where we want the game to be…”

felivear.1536:

We have proven without a doubt that a majority, a large majority even, of tournament players hate Skyhammer.

Can you provide the evidences ?
Seriously I do not feel Skyhammer is fair/balanced and do not like it for spvp. I would be pleased to have it removed but how on earth can you argue you have proven something ?
50 infinite threads on guys crying on a forum is not an evidence that large majority hate the map.
Maybe you have real figures…if yes where do you get them from ?

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

I think it is extremely important that you release a new statement regarding where you intend to take the various classes’ roles. And not as some followup post in the patch notes, like last time: Please release a Dev Blog or schedule a series of vids that clearly define what the the roles will be for the classes (and, perhaps, the three game modes too!) after the upcoming changes. This will give us a much better ‘100 ft view’ of the situation, while still giving you the opportunity to keep specific plans close to your chest.

Exactly… I would say brillant.
Seriously this is exactly what we need.
If they do the job seriously (role for each profession on each game modes at a competitive level.) they will definitively acknowledge the need of major adjustments.
This is why I fear it won’t be done.

Two professions are out of control for the moment:
- Thief who is by itself keeping two other profession outside the meta (ele & mesmers)
- Warriors:warriors every where god mode in all part of the games, self sufficient and number one or two in core winning criteria: Damage / Sustain / Control / Condi removal / Stability
30 % of warrior in tpvp in average should tell something
40 % or above in wvw and higher rates in guilds should also

=> sorry but realignment should not be power creep but a true real and efficient nerf for both of these two professions.

L2P is not an answer…these points are coming from best current players.

dimyzuka.7051:

(hint- not a single top spvp mesmer uses mantras or has any points in the inspiration tree.)

This…sometimes I really wonder if Anet is trolling Mesmer. Their choice over last year were so game breaking or at best so useless:
Glamour nerf => glamour mesmer got unviable in Zerg
Blured fenzy nerf => mesmers got unviable in Zerg fights (remain the utiliy of veil and TW)
Root stacking => death sentence (even with blink / phase retreat)
Condition buff + S/D thief => mesmer got unviable in tournament
Mantra buff…OMG ..did you try that ?…this is such a pain.
Now mesmers are anihiliated by thieves (state of the game at high level) and Anet is planning to remove vigor and lower zerk damage => WTF is wrong here ?

I started leaving mesmer profession two months ago and am more and more confident that it was the right choice. I just do not play it anymore.

But I feel very frustrated that developpers let such mistakes last so long.

Form.8741:

I don’t get how Mesmer is an underpowered class, unless they nerfed phants by about 80% in the last 4 months…it’s an extremely GOOD 1v1 class.

Hardcountered by thief. => no point on using mesmer for roaming..it is outperformed by thieves.

caveman.5840:

is that not what the thief is meant to do by being the highest dps class in the game drive away outer classes from using full zerk !
so the other classes play a more defensive team built play style !

No

Noc.2459:

In one month they will recognize the issue.

In two months they will discuss it.

In three months it will appear in a balance preview.

In six months we will have a bug hotfix and an eight percent nerf on torment.

Let’s say it is a mesmer bug to have it fixed next week

Can I use Paintshop ?

If yes I have your pic

Heimdallr.7021:

berserker stance works only against conditions

So what ? Conditions do not make damage ?

Heimdallr.7021:

defiant stance it’s not used by any warrior in is right mind (should it became popular i bet people like you will come here and ask for a nerf).

It is not used thus it is not a damage mitigation tool ? Is that your logic ?

Heimdallr.7021:

As for the other two, are you seriously comparing shield stance versus thhe high protection uptime a guardian can have?

+

warrior needs high HP because HP and armor are the only thing this class has to mitigate damage: do you see warrior with protectioni, blinds, aegis, stealth, clones?

Just lol guy…it seems you try to compare worst to best.
Why not comparing protection with endure pain and shield stance with blind?

Face the fact that warrior has high HP because they lack the damage mitigation other classes have.

Insisting mindlessly will not change facts. You are not asking for fact but for chantry.

Ohh… and I forgot this one: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Ire
But I am sure you will tell us that it is no damage mitigation as it is for conditions

Heimdallr.7021:

warrior needs high HP because HP and armor are the only thing this class has to mitigate damage

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Berserker_Stance
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiant_Stance
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Stance

you are welcome

Humbolio.2174:

The problem is more that most of the other classes need a buff and more viable build options

Thus…warrior need a nerf

When you feel that all others are wrong and against you, it is maybe because the problem is on your side.

I understood there were a problem when I noticed one day that while full PVT Armor and full Zerk on trinkets and weapons (ascended) with my mesmer I was not able to put a bow warrior bellow 90%. As soon as I made damage, his life climbed passively to 100% 1 sec later. I think he was trolling as he didn’t move at all never tried to dodge. I launched my phatasms my autoattacks tried to shatter also. Nothing bellow 90%.
He could have sit down I would not have been able to kill him.
Meanwhile 1 shot not avoided from me and I was at 60%.

Yeah yeah I know your advices warriors…L2P.
This is not a matter of L2P in such cases.

OMG awesome !!!!
If i follow the same logic increasing HP of warriors by 50 000 woud become a hudge nerf to HS…
…You know what ?….
It would’nt !

Take your time…breath slowly…I’m sure you will get it ;-)

Mesmer hardcountered by thieves for more than half a year and additional nerfs coming (vigor / de)
You took the right decision.
Once there will be no more mes…maybe they will do something to the profession.
Personnaly I decided to leave my mes but refused to choose broken classes (thieves and war) as broken mechanics have to disapear sooner or later.

[quote=3541261;BurrTheKing.8571
Like I said before, nerfing another class just to bring it down to the frankly mediocre levels of other classes, considering some are lucky to have 1 viable build, isn’t balancing but simply destructive behavior.

Other classes need buffs, there have been way too many nerfs recently. [/quote]

Lol, I love this argument and see it so often.

When you have one profession dominating in almost all domains compared to the others you have two choices
=> one obvious: adjust the anomaly (realign things to a normal level)
=> one long, complex and finally bad : buff all other professions and enter in a power creep process

I am sure you have an idea on which scenario is prefered by warriors:)

Low thief ?
Hum….I see plenty of thieves playing top level tournament. plenty.

Atherakhia.4086:

The only skill in the game more telegraphed than a Warrior’s is Maul for Ranger. With each patch making it even easier to avoid a Warrior’s skills because they’re turning Warriors into giant flashing pinball machines I can’t take this thread seriously… sorry.

Lol…weakness of telegraphed skill is that there is time to react and avoid it.
Less dodge..less reaction possible…less weakness.
Less dodge profit most to telegraphed skills than others as they were those suffering the most of it.

You can’t take that seriously???
Well I can’t help you more sorry.

Hi,
I noticed that there is a general reduce of vigor access applied to all classes in the last patches.
Doesn’t it help already strong but telegraphed skills to land correctly as evade is less an less possible ?
As a result doesn’t it make warrior even more powerfull as they are
- the primary profession with very (too much) strong but telegraphed skills where you have absolutely to avoid damage/control effect to survive ?
- the profession which can deal the best by getting hit more often (as dodge rate decreases) with their superior armor and health pool ?

I already see tpvp games with 40% of warriors (2 in a team is usual now). Don’t you feel that this figure is likely to rise even higher ?

Someone noticed also that warriors will get a buff with the incoming sigil change as they will be the only profession able to get benefit of “on switch” effects every 5 sec.
Is this information right ?

On the other hand I heard about a nerf of 8% of HS passive but with a sensitive (but unknown) buff to active.

All in all what do you think is the tendency for warrior meta ?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Kicast.1459:

Honestly, since necro patch I was sure there was a problem in sPvP with condition meta.
It seems that things have deeply changed without being noticed.
I feel sorry for mesmers. (obviously at high level nothing but shatter zerker is still sometimes used). They will have to wait one more year.

You do know that Necromancers are WORSE off damage wise since the introduction of Dhuumfire than they were before it right? This has been tested and proven by several different people.

Are you arguing that condition bunkers are not the meta today ?

Honestly, since necro patch I was sure there was a problem in sPvP with condition meta.
It seems that things have deeply changed without being noticed.
I feel sorry for mesmers. (obviously at high level nothing but shatter zerker is still sometimes used). They will have to wait one more year.

Rezz.8019:

Question: What’s up with warriors?

Lol with critical damage nerf coming I think they will feel more comfortable with their Healing Signet as they it will be even harder to burst them down.

And Condition Bunker will become even stronger.

Lol I have just played in spvp against a tanky healing signet warrior. Oh My God. Arenanet honestly you are proposing the top of braindead gameplay now. But yes take really care on next changes (hope 1 year will be sufficient). One could have to click on something to be more efficient….which would be bad design for sure.

+1
Balance team must look at mesmer in raid.
Contrary to eles who are in a good spot, mesmer have been nerfed to hell:
Blured fenzy nerf + confusion nerf + GWEN train left nothing but veil to mesmers.
Yes we are OP in 1v1. We do not want it. Remove PU. Give us something efficient in zergs.

Warrior god mode in wvw zerg and PVE since day 1.
Warrior …god mode everyhere fore more than 6 months. (New king of roaming and pvp now)

Warriors everywhere but no problem for ANET.

Play warrior…you cannot be wrong

Should I understand that the trait should not do what it is supposed to do but should work another way ?
What would it be ?
Confusion first and then other condi depending on the damage they make ?
…no this would not be ideal if you only have one stack of confusion….let’s say Confusion if stack of confusion would do more damage than another condi and then conditions depending of the damage they make !!

Yes that will be nice and would give to warriors a little chance to anihilate quicker condi builds they are supposed to be weak against.

More power to warrior …they deserve it !!!

50% warriors in performing guilds in wvw sounds balanced to someone here ?
Maybe it is because the class is challenging but absolutely not op

Xavi.6591:

Guardians, Warriors & Necros are the main zerg classes at the moment.

At the moment ???
In fact Guardians, Warriors & Necros are the main zerg class since confusion nerf.

mini.6018:

Mesmers complaining about easykill warrior? This thread made my day.One in many.

Good and constructive remark…thank you very much. We feel clever now.
Thank you for coming.

Azawrath.7304:

Can you explain? Imo perma vigor does mean perma evade.

Not at all. Perma vigor helps you gain quicly endurance to dodge better. By no way it is sufficient to get perma evade

Azawrath.7304:

You need a high endurance rate to evade when you want to.

It is needed indeed but not sufficient. It is the mix of high vigor + skills that gives very high rate on evade. It is (was at least before december patch) the case on some thieves build where perma vigor + sword skills + cheesy gain of initiative + some traits to use less endurance on dodge that made possible to evade an awesome number of attacks on a very very long time.

PU is in 1v1 over the top. I fear nothing with thi build.
Bring nothing really good in tPvP but it is a killing machine in 1v1 with a pretty low level of skill required.
You become tanky and can abuse stealth for a very long time.
Even if Stealth is not perma like it can be on some thieves build, it is awfully bad design IMHO.

Azawrath.7304:

I know that perma evade is still somewhat available to thief but look at how much we have to invest (Sigils, runes, 30 trait points) while other classes just need 5-10 trait points and can add a sigil of energy and be good to go.

Some other class can have access to perma vigor in some manner. But perma vigor is not perma evade.
Real problem is perma evade.

In PvP Mesmer have been put outside the meta since the Necro/warrior buff.
In WvW top professions are Warriors, Guards, Necro
It is a fragile class in zergs not able to dish hudge amount of aoe damage like eles or necros.
Mesmer have some utiliy usage but very few of them per zerg are sufficient and more is not good: they are called TP / Veil bots.

Very good mesmers seem to remain efficient on roaming however. I obviously do not belong to this list. Have challenging time (win 60% of my duels) with all profession except good warriors and goog thieves where i die or my opponent fly away very easily.

If your choice is related to Necro or Mesmer then I would say go Necro for zerg / pvp as they are very usefull in zergs and strong in PvP.
If you prefer roaming then go mesmer.
For Pve it doesn’t really matter as everything is doable by any class.

If you are not stuck to mesmer or necro the honnestly go warrior…you cannot be wrong.
I sent a message on healing signet arguing that overhealing passively autoattacks was a bug in conception or implementation.
=> my message got deleted in the hour. (no kidding) official reason: I made personnal attack on staff of Aremanet.
Thus I think they are not intending to change anything deeply on warrior… and warrior are god mode in all part of the games today:
-PVE => neverending list of groups looking for “full zerk warrior only”
-PvP => 3 warrior team are viable and played by some top teams / counters hard other strong professions like Necro / Rangers
-WvW Zerg => absolute gods => top control / top sustain damage / top armor / top condi denial / top vitality
-Roaming => top mobility

Lots of warrior are arguing they have been nerfed on last patch. All my guildies claim they take more benefit from the patch (for wvw at least).

You can try but you will not succeed.
Facts are facts.
Look at top guilds (not mine) composition.
Look at GvG.
Same skill level / Same organization => not question to ask => warrior / guardian /ele / necro pain train FTW.
I am not happy with this situation but let’s face it this is what is in place for close to one year now.

I belong to a league 1 european server (in pretty good position to win the current season).
In my guild rules are clear: roster is
-4 warriors
-4 guardians
-4 necros
-4 eles
-1 to 2 max mesmers

This is the result of pretty good experienced player (not me)
With last patch we are testing some abilities on thieves to stop ennemy zerg thus we are likely to replace 1or 2 guys by 1 or 2 thieves

So I would answer that for large fight rangers / engineer are completely outside the scope of “usefull / optimized” professions.
Mesmers are only seen as veil bots.

I am a mesmer and I should be honest: there are worst position than my profession.

About solo roaming the common feeling is that it is something kept for warriors / thieves and also good engineers.

All in all my feeling is that rangers are in really bad position.
Engineer are stuck in roaming and mesmers in veilboting.

No remark on mesmer roaming efficiency ?
I heard that we were bad for zerg (except veil)
Now I see that we are even not seen as good roamers.

Well I feel it is true..bit it still makes me sad…

jonwar.4186:

making indiscriminate and completely unnecessary nerfs to a mechanic that is directly tied to our survivability

Tool dedicated to your survivability does not have necessary to be more efficient than the ones for other profession.
You have to understand that perma-evade and perma-stealth are possible providing awaseome defense capability.
The mechanic tied to your class has never been: “being hardest class to down”
With all the DPS you get it must not be the case.

jonwar.4186:

Our condition removal is hardly on par with every other class

Thieves have efficient tools to deal with conditions and are at least far from being the weakest class on this part.

jonwar.4186:

I’d much rather be immobilized and crippled than have stacks of bleeding, poison and burning on me.

So what ? Life is hard ? That is true for all professions you know. Thieves will have a little idea of what can be the life of other classes.

jonwar.4186:

…your developers may consider the Dagger pistol black powder heart seeker as an exploit of your game and if it is, it is your fault for letting it exist for so long

Is it a reason for never fixing it ?
But nevertheless, I am glad to hear now a thief admitting it could be broken.

jonwar.4186:

you nerfed the very thing that makes a thief function…. initiative.

I think this assumption is a little bit exagerated. Initiative regeneration made it possible to have a too much “spammy” and “no minded” profession.
This is in fact a good opportunity to enhance thief gameplay and skill.

jonwar.4186:

you gave me a 1second immobilize on a skill i never use

Time to use it maybe. Again, more decision to take with consequences, less spamm, better game.

Heizero.9183:

^ This. In a world where you can potentially get 14k backstabs, on a naked up-level, while maintaining a health pool of 20k.
Fixed it for you ^

Come on, 14k backstaps are common on full rabid (toughness everywhere) light armors. I have heard also about warrior taking 8k.
It seems that lots of thieves are not aware of the real potential of their professions.

To precise my previous post in this thread:
To provide some love to mesmers in WvW:

-Align Confusing Enchantments & Blinding Befuddlement with Distracting Strikes:
4 stacks of confusion for 8 sec.
-Make mantra channeling a reflect or provide stability.

Concern of my post: Place of the mesmer in WvW (taking part on large scale battle)

Dear Jon,
I belong to a golden league server in europe (a top one where fights are usully at 40 vs 40).
I will try to present with the discussion I had with all the payers I encounered the concerns of my profession in WvW large scale fights (no roaming discussion here) in regards with the incoming change

A) Context
Several nerfs hit us in the past with two major ones
- Confusion 50% damage nerf & blinding debuflement
- Blurred fenzy becoming an evade rather an invulnerability => taking retal damage on a high risk move (jumping in the zerg / putting the burst and trying to escape until next cooldown) is now suicide against good guilds and puts the shatter bomber mesmer out of really viable option

In top of that we have to add that phatasms cannot survive long enough to become an efficient weapon in big encounters.

As a result, this leads mesmers to feel that their major added value in large scale fight are now only
- Veil: here mesmer remain unique
- Null field: here mesmer feel weaker than necromancer to remove buff

Other mesmer unique abilities are not considered as major added value in large scale fight
- Portal : are now only used for golems transport
- Time warp is good but on very long cool down and on a fixed position while most of fights with current meta are very mobile (warriors – guardians trains)
- Relections: mesmer keep having a good role on this part but it remains very contextual and not a strong strategy against current meta (pain warriors -guardian trains)

It is not a single day where I do not hear that now mesmers are veil bots.
And we all agree that being a veil bot is not fun.

B) My expectations I don’t see in next patch
What I am expecting for next balance patch is to see something that will make mesmer again usefull and asked in large scale fights.
And to be honest I don’t see it.
I saw some love on mantras in last patch:
1) Aoe condi cleansing is a good point
2) Aoe stability is also something really interesting. With the stun break, it makes it really usefull for ourselves. However
-the radius (too low)
-the short duration (2s) without stunbreak for allies make it close to useless for team support
We feel also that mantras cannot really be efficient in large teamfights with such long time of channeling and the never ending interrupts we have to face.

C) Your position
Well in the end, I still feel lost and would like to get your views on mesmer role in WvW.
-do you feel happy with the current mesmer situation ?
If yes
-why a guild (40 players) should take more than one or two mesmer for veil ?

If no what are your plans
-will we see again efficient glamour mesmers in future (by increasing the number of stack of confusion provided on glamour traits)
-will we see shatter bomber mesmer => are you still happy with blured fenzy nerf ?
-will we see efficient aoe range for mesmers ?
-will mantras become more viable and in which way ?

Thanks in advance
<Desesperate mesmer>

selan.8354:

that all we are atm is either a veil bot or a 1v1 duel class. every other class is doing better atm.

1v1 according to very good players (not me but see opinion of Sensotix / Xeph / Lord Helseth ) mesmers are dominated by thiefes (at least).

Xaylin.1860:

There actually are many different viable builds for Mesmers. For PvP, for WvW (more roaming than zerging)

Solo roaming belongs to thieves / warriors honestly.
Small team roaming is the only remaining part for mesmers.

BlackDevil.9268:

Also, phantasm specs aren’t supposed to be viable in large group fights. That’s where shatter plays a role.

Could you please tell us how to have clone / phantasm available to shatter in a zerg when a phantasm hardly survive enough to land a single shot ?
I am really interested.

silvermember.8941:

We were told 2 weeks ago in an official pre-release balance patch notes that we will get balance on october 15, This automatically superceded any previous mentioned of october 1, to anybody that doesn’t like to QQ for the sake of QQ.

We have a lot to QQ about (as an ele I do), but this isn’t one of them.

To be precise, nothing really balanced will come on 15/10 (the soonest) as they still intend to buff warriors and guardians…..ROTFL.
This is becoming pathetic.