Guild Wars 2

Cogbyrn.7283:

Covis.6037:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Do people not want to win because of the joy of competition anymore? Like, anyone anywhere? Always with needing rewards (material or recognition) to be incentivized to partake in the thrill of a competitive activity.

play a game for 3 years. play it without any rewards. play it without any real progression. play it daily.

I played Counter-Strike for 5 years straight. I played for the fun of it. I never leveled up, earned new guns, gained new traits, played in any leagues (though I almost joined one of the newbie CAL leagues), or anything like that.

Years and years of the same maps, the same guns, the same everything.

It just surprises me how people can’t just do something for the enjoyment of doing it anymore. Everything always has to have a level up mechanic, or some arbitrary point-accumulation, or titles or skins or etc.

I feel like an old man, wondering why all the kids these days can’t just enjoy their time playing with plastic toys, with their new-fangled gadgets and gizmos and flashy lights.

I feel the same way (played CS for 3 years for the fun of it) but I am old school also.

Like muscarine, the poster above, I used to be a hermit in the mists before any of the current rewards were implemented and know exactly what he means. People who enjoy PVPing know about the zone/rush you can get into when you’re focus gets to a high level and your fighting experience becomes an intoxicating mixture of destruction and art. I PVP for those moments and when I no longer feel that, I know its time for me to take a break or quit the game.

Getting some extra PVE perks while PVPing is nice, but you can’t have it as your sole reason to PVP (as some posters here seem to be suggesting) or you will have a miserable time.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

This thread serves no purpose other than flame-baiting and should just be closed.

The OP is generally known for making these types of threads (going around to different class forums to stir up controversy). I find it funny how he’ll post nerf mesmer threads, then makes idiotic posts asking others not to nerf mesmers because he dueled one mesmer on his necro and found them not OP, then follows it up with more nerf mesmer threads.

I think he just wants attention or is missing a few marbles.

Daishi.6027:

I dun get it…

If Mes is so brokenly OP and easy… How can I kill players with non mesmer professions, esp on toons I rarely use?

If they are bad shouldn’t it carry them if it’s easy? Wouldn’t I be dying because it’s so powerful?

I believe its a difference of perspectives, personalities, and how well you are doing relative to how well you think you should be doing (i.e. expectations).

Imo, PVP is about 90% skill with your class, experience, and knowing your enemy. The rest comes down to class matchups and builds. I believe this because its not hard to find players from every class that will consistently beat 9 out of 10 other random players they come across regardless of the class they are paired against.

If you PVP for the sake of the competition and because you find it enjoyable, then you don’t really care so much about class balance or losing for that matter. Thieves were considered a hard counter to mesmers before the patch but instead of complaining on the forums, this only fueled my competitive spirit and I would deliberately seek out good thieves so that I could pit myself against them. I didn’t like to lose but I valued the challenge and fun of going against someone better than me more.

If you feel you should be dominating "x"percentage of your opponents but instead are coming up short, you’re faced with two choices. Seek answers within your control or seek answers outside of your control. People who whine generally don’t understand the root cause of why they are frustrated or how they have the power to affect change. (Or they may realize it but are not interested/motivated enough to make the change.)

Waffler.1257:

It’s simple economics, the level of e-sports in GW2 is only large enough to sufficiently support one team at any given time. If a second team were to enter the competitive scene and practice enough to compete at the same level as the abjured, the GW2 e-sports level would no longer be able to support both teams, and consequently both teams would experience e-sports degeneration. Other teams know this, and due to the high barriers to entry of the conquest game mode, it is not economically viable to expend the required resources to compete with the abjured. Unfortunately, this leads to a vicious cycle in which the lack of competition gradually degrades the total e-sports level capacity of GW2 over time, so that eventually it will not even be sufficient to support one team. This phenomena is known as Vain Convergence.

Lol, nicely said; I even looked up “Vain Convergence” to see if there was such a thing.

Before the patch, I was a pretty die-hard phantasm mesmer for sPVP; over 6000 games and 99.9% of the time I was using some type of phantasm build. After the patch, my build is similar to what I was using before but I no longer hold off from shattering as the damage is sweet and your illusions seem to die quicker now anyways with dps going up across the board.

A few mesmers, including Alpha, posted some advice on a Rabid condi build and I’m currently using it to finish Map completion on my mesmer.

Pros of the build for me:

- I usually use a power GS+Sw/Sw for PVP so being able to play a completely different playstyle/weapons for PVE is nice.
- Worryfree. You’re pretty tanky and can gather as many mobs as you can tag for easy AoEing.

Negatives:

- It takes me about 5 seconds roughly to kill a mob which doesn’t feel too bad but is definitely slower than some other class/builds. However, most of your damage is AoE so you can kill 5 mobs in about 5 seconds as well.
- Mesmer condi is arguably the worst of all classes. Confusion and torment were created with PVP in mind and don’t work well for PVE.

Godmoney.2048:

Good players adapt. Bad players whine.

So true. . .

Good players generally see whatever is in front of them as a problem to be solved/challenge to rise to. Bad players are defeated before the fight has begun and will instead whine to massage their egos.

The general problem I have with distortions is that I think it will be difficult to use them as a support tool for others and that you’ll mainly use it to prevent damage to yourself. Do you find that you are providing good support to your team through distortions? It sounds like it might be possible if you are good at using them but sounds difficult to pull off.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Guild Wars 2 PvP is a newcomers nightmare.

I should not tell any of my friends who are interested in PvP, “oh, you might practicing against a guy with 3,000 games on his Mesmer.”

That is not okay. Unbalanced builds and classes be dammed, the real issue with unbalanced is the player skill level.

Totally agree. Player skill/experience level relative to one another will overwhelming be the biggest deciding factor in how a fight turns out. This is why I believe balancing should only be done around the highest levels of players where player skill is relatively close to each other.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Make a Practice Mode, a REAL practice mode.
PvP rewards for practice should reward players trying new classes. Win or lose, you need to reward players trying different classes, reward exploring your PvP system. I should get 500 points for practicing my warrior, I have 50 games on him. Why am I getting 500 points for ‘practicing’ on my Elementalist? I have 4,000 games on him, I should be getting less!

Make a Beginner, Intermediate, Expert and Competitive Hotjoin modes.
Want to play a quick match with your Elementalist that has 4,000 games? This is the place. 500 if you win, 200 if you lose. Simple. Breaking the tiers into rank. To reward healthy playing, if you are rank 80 and going into beginner, you should get little reward for playing. Reward the community for playing at their level. Unlike practice mode, the hotjoin modes should limit what maps the play is experiencing.

Totally agree with the having different tiers of Hotjoin but I don’t see the difference between Practice and Beginner Hotjoin mode. It seems Practice is redundant and can be removed/combined into Beginner Hojoin.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Mode Breakdown-
Beginner: Rank 1-20, Maps: Battle of Kyhlo, Forest of Niflhel, Legacy of the Foefire.
Intermediate: Rank 20-40, Maps: All above plus Temple of the Silent Storm, Courtyard.
Expert: Rank 40-60, Maps: All above plus Skyhammer, Spirit Watch.
Competitive: Rank 60-80, Maps: All maps available.
And more importantly, Spectate is LOCKED for the hotjoin modes.

No reason was given for these changes and I don’t see one, so would disagree with this especially the spectate part. Why lock Spectate?

Nova Stiker.8396:

Make Random Arenas (GW1 style).
Get rid of unranked. For those that doesn’t know, Guild Wars 1 had a mode called Random Arenas, you are given a team and you play until you lose.
This.
Is.
Important.
This is where PvP friendships are made and bonded. A single match with random people is not enough, especially the very next round you could play against each other. You want to reward your community for playing together, something GW2 PvP really lacks. Although, the amount of points to win needs to be toned down, preferably to 300 to win.

Love your idea about making PVP bonds and your Random Arenas idea sounds like a good start. Having an emotional/personal connection with the people you play with/against is extremely important if you want to keep people around. Without this, the PVP in this game feels less like an MMO and more like a single player experience.

This is an area that I feel Anet is lacking. They simply don’t know what drives PVP players and how to keep players interested in it. Creating a sterile environment with basic tools will only get you so far.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Do NOT give everything at the start.
This sounds great on paper, but you want to ease people into PvP. Reward them for getting ranks, allowing them to play with more options as they go on. Allowing a rank 1 Warrior to go full berserker glass is toxic, the only thing he will learn is his downed state. Allow players to feel for their class and build. Start with easy to use Trinkets, Sigils and Runes. As their rank goes up, give them more options and eventually (probably around rank 20) they’ll have everything they’ll need to build whatever they want.
Lastly, get rid of using gold to unlock items, who the kitten thought that was a good idea?! Can I have his job? I promise you I can do better than that!

I don’t think this will be as great of a problem since new players will be matched with each other but it doesn’t hurt to simplify choices for new players so that they can just jump in and fight others without trying to maximize their build.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Guild Wars 2 combat has changed greatly, and some might disagree, it changed for the better. It’s fast, fun and exciting, however, the PvP modes needs to reflect the new combat. Guild Wars 2 combat has evolved past beta, the game modes however, are still 3 years behind.

I feel the same and implementation of these ideas are needed more than ever since new players simply won’t play more than a few games before giving up in frustration.

I believe blind still works on Rampage. Can anyone confirm?

I am not sure but I think if you use a channeled skill, it will point you towards where the actual body is.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

I’m leaning towards Dueling and Inspiration and maybe Domination. That seems to push me towards interrupts and maybe mantras..?

These trait lines along with mantras synergize well for a power Sw/Sw build.

Having over 6000 hotjoin games, I prefer them over ranked for a few reasons:

1) Less pressure and I am free to do what I want which is usually just to fight others. I do try to cap but I don’t feel bad if I don’t.

2) No wait times; cant stand having to wait 3-5 minutes on average (including the 1 minute ready time before the match starts) for ranked games.

3) You can play with familiar faces/names. I like facing off against people that I’ve played with/against in the past and having that history and connection is nice. I doubt I would have played this long without feeling part of a community of regular players.

The only thing I really don’t like about hotjoins are the lobsided games. A large portion of the players that do hotjoins are there to just do their dailies and have no interest in pvping. This tends to contribute to the problem of lobsided games as most people join the winning side to create an even larger imbalance.

Simonoly.4352:

I personally think that it should share the cooldown of the utility you are mimicking. So you could double blink every 30 seconds, but have only one more unique utility. I can only really justify it’s use for maybe double veils or portals at present.

Same for me. This would go a long ways towards putting people on the fence like me to actually use it.

My guess though is that it was deliberately put on a long cooldown since the dev team couldn’t possibly foresee every possible use of this spell. Robert did mention he had to really push for this spell and having the long cooldown was probably a concession he had to make in order to appease people’s fears/doubts.

Started with Sw/Pistol+GS for PVP at game launch and moved to Sw/Sw+GS permanently after about a year into the game. Don’t see myself changing anytime soon.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

I like it to buy my problem is I keep forgetting to activate it before using the utility skills so it become pointless.

Still trying to get it in my head to activate it then us skill. Other than this simple problem it super good with my build.

Haven’t used it but I think the reason above is something that would hold me back from trying it out. A lot of times you don’t know beforehand that you’re going to need or want double of a utility spell. It’s only after you’ve used the spell do you realize that using Mimic would have been nice. I think the skill would work/flow better if it duplicated the last utility used within 10 seconds instead of doubling your next casted utility spell.

I’m enjoying the faster pace also as its more of an “edge of your seat type combat” where skill differences between players are magnified. If you watch games, its the quick combat that is exciting to watch and not duels between bunkers or sustains. Its the same if you’re playing as well.

Generally, its the people who cannot adapt or new players that aren’t having fun. Its not fun going from 100-0 in the blink of an eye over an over again and feeling as though you can’t do anything about it. I play sPVP mostly and the ones complaining are always those who fit in the above category.

To solve most of the nerf threads, there needs to be an option for newer players to be matched with other newer players so that the playing field is even. Without this, the PVP playerbase will not grow and will consist of just veteran players farming the inexperienced.

ASP.8093:

You interrupt them with MoD and then greatsword-shatter them to death. Try it. It’s really, really good.

Not every interrupt trait is for a kitten y never-shatter phant build.

I’ll have to try this.

FI in theory can be pretty versatile in its use but was kind of hard for me to pull off on a consistent basis which is why I generally just use the buff removal trait. However, some other things you can use FI for besides a quickened shatter:

- Use it as a cover to recharge mantra
- Quickness stomps
- Boon stripping from quickened sword AA

Zenith.7301:

This is a talking point pvp players keep parroting, that things should have cast times and counterplay, but we don’t see neither a cast time or counterplay claim to skills like blink or instant stealth in decoy use (and stealth virtually has little to no counters, just prediction games). The fact is, neither cast times nor counterplay are required for every instance in the game when it comes to pvp.

Skills are generally offensive or defensive in nature. Many offensive spells/abilities are given a cast time so that you have time to react to them. Defensive skills need to be instant since you only have a small window of opportunity to counteract an offensive ability. That is why people complain about abilities like Sword daze which is a defensive spell but is clunky to use because it has a cast time.

Skills like Blink/Decoy are instant because they were created to be defensive in nature. They are used to counter or avoid an attack. They can also be used offensively (e.g. stealth to setup a burst) but the abilities themselves do no damage so no one complains about it.

MoD was always instant and no one cared about it pre-patch but with increased DPS across the board and the stun portion added to the spell after the patch, it allows mesmers to have a much easier time bursting people down. If mesmers could stun you every 5 seconds but couldn’t capitalize on it, I don’t think anyone would really call the skill OP.

Even though I think the skill borderlines on being OP, I am hesitant on suggesting a change to it because I can see that its already losing some of its effectiveness as players are learning to adapt to it. (I think the distinctive sound of MoD is deeply ingrained in everyones mind by now and you instantly go on alert as soon as you hear it.) Plus damage may be adjusted and we may see more options for people to survive bursts provided to us (e.g. amulets with vitality) down the line so that mesmers are not going to have as easy a time bursting someone down by just spamming this skill.

Ideally, we want to settle these core/broader scope issues first before adjusting a skill that may later no longer really need the adjustment.

denis.9487:

You are complaining about long steAlth times. In 6 seconds you cannot click on a clone and kill it? In 12 seconds you cannot target a clone and kill it? You are standing around looking for the real Mesmer while his clones chew you. Brilliant strategy no offense you deserve to die.

You bring up a good point. I have alot of PVP experience on my Mesmer and in PVP in general from other games. However, as I mentioned, I don’t have a whole lot of experience in dealing with PU mesmers or in playing other classes. My viewpoints are based on just a few random encounters with them post patch and how I think it affects class balance. If other classes have access to reasonable ways to counter the build, then I take back everything I said on the subject and apologize.

To clarify, my views on the subject are not based on me personally having a problem with it. (Yes, I think its a troll build but I can see it for what it is and don’t really have problems dealing with it.) If you support PU as is, then the best way to not get it nerfed/adjusted is to educate other classes on ways to counter it so that they can actually go out and try it for themselves.

@ Necrotize

Just to clarify, I use Harmonious Mantras and my comments are with sPVP in mind.

Again, I don’t run into PU mesmers that often so my experience in dealing with them is quite limited. From what I gather though, there doesn’t seem to be a counter to them and that is where I have a problem. Everything needs a counter to be considered fair play not to mention somewhat balanced in regards to risk/reward level.

Your suggestion for killing clones does not work unless you have access to AoE on a short cooldown to combat the clone generation. Ideally it would be a weapon ability that cleaves at range such as a Guardian Staff or Ranger Axe. If you don’t have access to something like this, then I don’t see you being able to keep up with the clone generation.

And to clarify, the playstyle is not to sit in stealth the whole time and generate clones. You generate clones/phantasms to pressure your enemy while ranging them with your staff. If they kill your clones, you just continue to pressure them from range and generate more clones. If they turn their attention on you, you invis up, generate more clones and pop out at range again to continue with the pressure. You sprinkle in some shatters when appropriate and you will not last long under this kind of pressure. Its not burst but you have roughly 10-15 seconds to try and kill the mesmer before you are forced to retreat.

As a mesmer, I am ok with this kind of cheese if other classes are able to deal with it and it was just us mesmers that couldn’t deal with PU. I wouldn’t be calling for a nerf to it then and I would be perfectly fine with keeping it the way it is. However, I don’t think that is the case and in order it to be fair to other classes, I do believe the skill needs to be adjusted so that there is some type of counter-play for it.

If you do not want to see the skill nerfed, I would suggest you spread the word on ways to counter it.

Necrotize.2974:

Except those “stealth troll mesmers” lost a huge amount of their condition application with the change to maim and the removal of Debilitating Dissipation, meaning the only reliable condition application that can be used while stealthed is Staff Clones, which will only apply a damaging condition 66% of the time. So the two greatest strengths of what many people considered a trollish build that should be the reason of PU being nerfed aren’t even issues or even in the game anymore. And I hate to say it, but if a mesmer is killing you with staff autoattacks and stealth, then maybe you need to reconsider your build, especially in this new rising condi meta(at least as long as burning is so strong and prevalent).

I disagree with this statement. I run Inspiration with MoR for condi cleanses and its useless against clones because they stack conditions faster than you can cleanse/heal through the damage. I’d rather deal with a Torment/Power shattering PU mesmer than the staff clones since you can cleanse/avoid burst damage. Clones by themselves put so much pressure on you that you are at half health in no time and I have not found a way to counter to them. Again, this is damage you are freely doing while remaining stealthed.

If you or anyone has gone up against a condi PU and know of a reasonable way to counter this then mention it here by all means.

Surbrus.6942:

Leodon.1564:

troll build

There’s nothing wrong balancewise with troll builds. If someone wants to use Nomads and load up on stealths, evades, blinds and the like, making near zero contributions then that’s just what they’re doing. Same thing as people complaining about unkillible Thieves who save all their initiative and cool downs for escape, while not actually doing anything offensively… so what?

Unkillable/hiding thiefs and PU mesmers are not the same thing. Theres a big difference between a thief who specs to just hide/evade but does no or poor damage and a mesmer who does good/great damage while remaining stealthed. There has to be a tradeoff and there is very little for a PU mesmer.

If a PU mesmer did no damage or damage you could shrug off, then the stealth duration would not be a problem. As it is, a PU mesmer will kill you in a very short amount of time for how unkillable they are. (High reward/low risk.)

Edit: This leads to players getting frustrated against mesmers and will lead them to call out for nerfs to our class. I’d rather Anet deal with PU than nerf other areas that don’t need to be.

I have a problem with mesmers who sit in stealth and just uses clones/phantasms to whittle an opponent down. Takes zero skill and accomplishes nothing in a match other than to annoy others (aka troll build).

Same goes for shattering from stealth. When you have limited access to stealth, its a risk using your stealth offensively to shatter so I can accept that type of play. When a mesmer just loads up on stealth and continuously restealths after every shatter attempt, there is no counter and/or risk to the mesmer.

A mesmer should not be able to sit in stealth and do damage. A thief shooting you with a shortbow while remaining invisible has more counterplay since you at least know roughly where the thief is.

Having said that, I really haven’t run across too many mesmers who abuse PU but because of the few who do, the skill needs to change.

Hlord.5940:

How do mesmer stack might while stealthed? i really want know this so i can counter instant engi nades of death

The engie nades of death should be getting a fix. Until then, distortion, blink, and instant stuns are what I have been using to counter the engi stealth > barrage > combo.

To answer your question though, I think the might stacking others have mentioned is just the random might stacks you get while stealthed from PU.

Windwalker.7421:

I agree with you in principle, I want a balanced game too and I don’t want to play an OPd FoTM Mesmer, however I want to stay on the side of caution and avoid giving into “knee jerk” emotional balancing, and give it a few more days for players to adjust builds and more clearly see where the main issues are.

I think Pyro’s suggestion for CS sounds pretty reasonable. However, before we touch on too many traits, ANet needs to make a much larger decision on where they want the games damage to be. Just as the guys in the video, I strongly feel there was a general significant power creep for both Condie and direct damage. They either need to improve the scaling of Toughness and/or Vit to match, or reduce Power & Condition damage a tad.

If you nerf traits before you solve that fundamental problem, I think you’re just watering down all the hard work put into this giant patch.

Totally agree. There is a priority and balancing classes now when there are more basic issues at stake is not a good idea.

Mesmers have always been a difficult class to play against (similar to thieves) because you need to know how our abilities work in order to counter it. Unlike warrior which is pretty easy to understand and counter. Once people start getting familiar with how mesmers play in this new meta, some of our seeming “power” will gradually lessen. I would hope that Anet fixes some of the core issues first so as to give people some more time to get adjusted to how every other class is playing now and to develop counters for it. This will help insure that balance is done with the long haul in mind.

MailMail.6534:

In terms of our relation to other professions:

• Guard: Our biggest counter. Whether I’m on my tank, shatter or condi, guard is always the class I’m worried most about. Their burns are insane. Their dmg is buffed, so they eat through our clones more so than they did more.

Do you use Inspiration in any of your builds? Inspiration counters their burns quite nicely.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I guess I can finally post my bunker build.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-RFcZ;1ZUF4127RWV71;9;4TUV;0046158148;4Ukl6R;1rRnCrRnC3i

Completely capable of bunkering 1v3 on a point.

Depending on the situation
temporal enchanter>illusionary inspiration
bountiful disillusionment>chaotic interruption
null field>mantra of concentration>signet of inspiration

I haven’t tried a bunker build but there appear to be some holes in your build from what I can tell just from general pvping experience.

I don’t think Mantras are good for holding a point because they are hard to recharge without some cover for it. A class with good cc (lockdown mesmer/theif) will be able to lock you out pretty easily every time you attempt a charge. Having 3 mantras means alot of charging and I don’t see it working for hold pointing. One person can completely shut you down, let alone 3.

Kelthien.8593:

Jury’s still out on Inspiration. Feels powerful on paper- lots of condi cleanse, group support. I have a hard time telling if I’m actually helping my team or if the randomness and small one-off numbers/cleanses are just getting lost in the noise of wvw battles. Is Healing Prism a super-star, or am I wasting a trait line to nullify 1/3 of an auto-attack’s damage every 10 seconds?

I sPVP quite a bit and regular check to see what other mesmers are running. I would say out of maybe 50 mesmer’s I’ve inspected, roughly 10-15% percent have Inspiration as one of their traits (rather low) with the majority still running the old Dom/Duel/Illusions builds (roughly 40% estimate). I’d say Chaos is a bit more popular than Inspiration also from what I’ve observed.

In the ESL weekly cup, I believe Helseth used the old Dom/Duel/Illusions lines and the mesmer he went up against used a Dom/Duel/Inspiration build.

If you’re running against a condi heavy team and you don’t have a team that’s supporting you with cleanses, then I think Inspiration is definitely needed for the cleanses.

I’m loving Inspiration for sPVP right now mainly for the condi-cleanses but also because MoR is instant cast and you can use it to break out of Fear/Immobilizes, cast it while casting another spell, spam it while rezzing a down player, etc. (Also the changes to Mantra charging means that you can always have full charges ready before engaging in a fight.) It provides a little bit of group support in the build I use but is not as effective as other classes ability to support the group. I’m not sure what the radius is for the heals/condi cleanses but it seems rather small so that’s one limiting factor.

Depends on what you are fighting but lots of mesmer still do not take condi clears so that is one weakness you can exploit. Mesmers have good mobility but can’t keep up with Rampage and will be forced to invis or run away. Against PU, just run.

Could we get some sort of visual cooldown to be shown for Illusionary Inspiration so that we can actively try to get the best use out of it? Buff icon perhaps with a cooldown showing?

Fay.2357:

Leodon.1564:

I don’t get why people get all riled up when someone “claims” a build. Who really cares? Every build now that we’re confined to just 3 trait lines is going to be similar to another build.

Well, you sorta answered your own question.

Specifically though, it’s the rather condescending tone that he uses when talking about how ‘his build is so much better thought out and obviously superior than all the other condie builds’, because it’s not. It’s what everybody else is already using, nothing new, nothing groundbreaking, and definitely nothing obviously superior to all the other ones.

Thats the funny thing about posts. I didn’t get the the feel that the post was that condescending but you guys did. I just felt some guy was excited about a build he was using and wanted to share it with others. You guys dismiss the general overtone of the post and zero in on the one comment that was questionable. Maybe all of the builds he did see had little synergy and thus led to his comment that the posts he saw seemed less synergistic.

Regardless though, just move along if you didn’t find it helpful. No need to bash people who are trying to be helpful in my eyes.

Edit: Do not assume every poster on the internet is the same as you. Maybe he’s a kid, someone with a mental disability, etc. that isn’t quite on the same level as you. Would you bash a kid for every small thing you find offensive?

You guys are being too harsh on the OP. Not everyone that visits this forum is a regular and veteran player. I’m sure at least someone appreciated his post since it at least gave an explanation for the build and the playstyle. (Glancing over the build, it looks good to me.) If you didn’t find it helpful, just move along; no need to bash the guy for whatever forum “etiquette” you feel was broken.

I don’t get why people get all riled up when someone “claims” a build. Who really cares? Every build now that we’re confined to just 3 trait lines is going to be similar to another build.

Luclinraider.2317:

I’m actually not playing my Mesmer at the moment due to the new prof’s. I can literally stealth/haste ,myself and my group for 50 seconds out of every minute. 3 friends and I ran around WvW for 6 hours without a single wipe because if anyone goes down I can just perma stealth us for the rezz, or if I go down, my mesmer friend can do the same.

How do you stealth/haste your group for 50 seconds out of every minute? Is this the 30k burst out of stealth posts I’ve been seeing? Something tells me mes is not your main.

Engi grenades are supposedly bugged right now and doing double damage. Will probably get fixed soon.

ronpierce.2760:

I adore the “Necro killed me with my own OP conditions” complaints. It’s awesome. If people weren’t melting people so much necromancer wouldn’t be that powerful. Similarly, boons. Necromancer is basically a mirror at this point and people kill themselves. It’s the best wake up call there is, really.

+1.

Necros are definitely stronger post patch but I don’t think they are OP. They just do certain things better than others which is as it should be. Being tanky and masters of conditions are two of these things.

I was spectacting a game recently and noticed the entire red team filled with conditions and dying rapidly. When I zero’d in on the fight, I saw a lone Necro in lich form standing over a pile of bleeding bodies in rezz state. I got a good chuckle from that.

The main complaint I hear with PU is that it allows mesmers to 100-0 without any counterplay and not even knowing that a mesmer was around due to the long duration stealth.

Does anyone have any video of this? I’d like to see it in action.

1. One sentiment I’ve read is that mesmer has gotten a LOT easier to play. Are you enjoying this?
   I have not PvE’d with my mesmer since launch (PvP only) because I felt kind of ineffective with him DPS-wise compared to other classes. I feel the buffs to mesmer has narrowed the gap and am excited to take him for a spin in some PvE content now.
2. For me, the grandmaster mesmer traits have been an absolute candy store. Which GM traits have been your favorite?
   Favorite GM traits are going to be defined by the build you’re running but I thought the new Mistrust trait was pretty interesting and clever even though I don’t use it in my build.
3. Prismatic Understanding (PU) has proven to be a really strong trait for shatter builds (PU shatter). Do you think this needs adjustments?
   I don’t play PU but if the spell allows you to 100-0 someone without any counterplay as people are reporting, then it needs to be adjusted. Personally, I would like to see the duration kept the same or slightly reduced so that the utility/defense portion of the spell remains intact for PvE and WvW applications and instead reduce the offensive damage you can do from stealth.
4. Another build I’ve seen around is a power block/Chaotic Interruption build. Have you tried this out?
   Have tried PB but not in conjunction with CI
5. Normally, mesmers really only took Dom, Dueling, Illusions in PvP. Are you taking Chaos and Inspiration at all?
   Yes, both lines are strong and offer a compelling reason to take them. With conditions so strong in PvP though, I feel Inspiration is almost necessary to take over Chaos just for the cleanses. Would like to see some condition removal sprinkled in Chaos line to help it better compete with the Inspiration line which are both defensive in nature.
6. Mesmer got a lot of conditional recharge abilities (reduced recharge on staff when you have chaos shield for example). Are you liking these?
   *Yes, for min-maxers it is nice to be rewarded for good play. As others have stated though, we should have not to go through hoops (having multiple mesmers using chaos storms, picking up glamour traits, etc) to get the same 20% cooldown. Instead raise the percentage and put a cap on max cool down reduction or implement diminishing returns to prevent abuse/unintended play. *
7. Mimic got a huge change. Are you using this at all?
   Sounds like a good change but have not used it; may in the future.
8. Time Warp gained slow and now can be traited for resistance and super speed! Are you using this at all? Would you take this over the other elites?
   For PvE only. Would not use for sPvP for the same reason I’ve never used it; too long of a cooldown. The long cooldown though is understandable for tournament play where its more important to win the first team fight which this elite excels at, so am fine with the long cooldown on it.
9. How have your fights against other mesmers been? Do they feel skillful?
   Yes. Now that damage has been increased, skill differences are exaggerated and one small mistake can mean a quick death. Duels between evenly matched mesmers are fast and furious and can still last quite a bit of time through counterplay.

Would like to bring up one additional point if I may.

The lead designer(Robert Gee) mentioned in one of the live streams that he added a delay to the first part of iLeap (Sword#2) to help mesmers land the spell more reliably. I think his intent was to help us but it turned out the delay is making the spell harder to use reliably (e.g, we can no longer use the first part of the ability and dodge immediately). There is a thread on this forum with more details. Please bring to his attention if you can. Thanks!

I didn’t watch the whole video as I was on my lunch break but from what I saw it sure did seem you guys were biased in your “testing” with comments such as “get 3 mesmers to focus on you and its instant gib rofl”. Isn’t that true of 3 of any class using a burst DPS build? Comments like that make it seem like you’re tunnel visioning and not looking at things within context.

Your whole testing is done to show the burst capabilities of mesmer in a post patch world where DPS for all classes has risen. If you wanted to be a bit more fair, you would have shown the burst capabilities of all 8 classes. However even doing this would prove little, since max burst builds are almost always impractical for PVP games (unless you don’t care about dying).

For example, I didn’t see the spec the mesmer used but I’m guessing it was some type of Dom/Duel/Illusions build for stun and max shatter damage. There is no condition cleanse in any of these lines so how long do you think the mesmer would last once he blew all of his cooldowns on someone for that burst? I saw Blink and MoD for his utilites so I’m guessing he would have to take either Decoy or some condi cleanse for his 3rd utility. If he doesn’t take Decoy then there is no escape for this mesmer. If he doesn’t take some type of condi cleanse then he will get quickly eaten with all of the hard hitting condis being thrown around now.

Edit: If you want to go Yolo with your class, that’s your perogative but please don’t use that as a reason to balance a class around. If you want to balance somewhat objectively, have some top scrimmagers with various builds play some team comp games so that the audience can view things and come to their own conclusions. Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to showcase this now since its too early after patch.

Laraley.7695:

Entenkommando.5208:

Do you know the term “exploit” ?
Since you are using this bug to get an unfair advantage over other players it would definitly be a reason to be punished for, if you are using it excessively.

I don’t really play engi, but what I understand from this thread is the fact you just use a trait to get that high damage. How is that an exploit?

If you know it is a bug and use it unfairly then its an exploit but how is anyone going to prove that you knew? No one is going to get banned for using a trait.

Edit: My comment was directed at Entenkommando.

Thanks Chaos for expressing what I had felt for a while now. I think the mesmer community owes a big thank you to Robert for actually putting in the time to make mesmer interesting and well thought out. Kudos!

The OP is right and I don’t know why all these non-mesmers who don’t know how mesmers function keep saying otherwise.

Phantasms are the majority of our sustained DPS (our personal DPS is weak) and shattering them for burst damage is a significant setback.

To take the thief steal example that was mentioned here, would you use steal if it meant your DPS was cut by roughly 60% initially and slowly built back up to full power after 15 to 25 seconds regardless if you landed the steal or not? Using steal has no setbacks, you are the same after using steal as you were before it if you miss. Shatters cost us greatly with no significant return other than a momentary spike.

Every class is scrambling right now to determine meta builds and pushing the envelope DPS-wise. This is the case after every patch and more so this patch with the trait revamp and increase in damage. sPVP is a carnage ground for build testing with bodies flying everywhere.

However, this will not last and things will begin to die down gradually. Once things die down, we’ll probably have a faster paced game than pre-patch but less than what it is currently now. Until we remotely get to that settling point, its hard to tell with any certainty if DPS is too much.

I was in Marauder gear and the other player was a thief. Yes, I never knew this sigil could proc this much so was wondering if this is to be expected now or if this was just a freak occurrence.

I personally would like for them to keep the stealth duration (or slightly reduced) but reduce the damage you can do from stealth so that the ability can be used more as a utility/defensive spell rather than an offensive spell. This would help keep its functionality intact for PVE and WvW where long duration stealths can come in handy.

Never knew how much damage this one sigil could proc.

I went down from 100-0 in 0 seconds (yes 1 hit was all it took) the other day which doesn’t happen that often so looked at the abilities the other guy used. Sigil of Hydromancy crit for over 4k (Flamebast was over 2k). Are those realistic numbers or did the moon and stars align for the perfect crit damage?

Toxsa.2701:

Anet, any idea why you give Mesmer Perma Stealth in the first place?

100% stealth duration increase + pulsing boons every second is way too much. It is even worse than thief because they can set up a 15k burst right beside you and you can’t see it coming.

Honestly, instead of kittening people up later with all the nerf, how about do some real testing before you release something. Yknow these guys are greedy folks that don’t care about balance a single bit. If you take away something from them after you given them something first, they’d refuse to buy your expansion! Totally bad move!

I don’t know if this post is supporting us or calling for more nerfs. Please go back to the Ranger forums and stop posting all these nerf this/nerf that posts on the mesmer forums. I can’t speak for other classes but mesmers as a whole police ourselves and know when something is out of whack and deservedly need to be adjusted.

Nice proposed change. +1

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

I’ve played Mesmer since GW1, and this update is the best thing to happen to Mesmers since the GW1 update on May 21, 2010, which finally, after five years, made Mesmer a viable profession in all game modes. Here we are again, it having only been three years this time. Mesmer feels great now. Versatile and strong, but certainly not overpowered when taking into account the buffs other professions received. This is how Mesmer should always have been, and unsurprisingly, the same man was behind both changes. Thank you for everything, Robert. You did good.

Imagine my disgust, then, to see a topic like this, which seems to be filled with people wanting a “special snowflake” merit badge for having played Mesmer back when it was little more than a Feedback/Time Warp button in PvE, and a two-gimmick developer injoke in PvP. If you are one of these people, you do not love Mesmer as a profession, you only love yourself for playing one because it was weak. If you find personal validation in playing underpowered aspects of games, please find it elsewhere, in single-player games perhaps.

Thankfully, Jon Peters has made clear that only small tweaks to the new status quo are coming. The new Mesmer is here to stay, so if you don’t like it, you are best served to find some other profession or game where your quest for hipster credibility can be satisfied. As someone who follows fighting games, I can assure you there are plenty of underpowered and underrepresented characters in that genre for you to feel special about playing.

Amen. To see a post like this is a slap in the face to every other mesmer who does not want to go back to the “status quo” before this trait revamp.

For some reason I thought Confounding Suggestions was stun on interrupt like PowerBlock. Is it a 100% stun every 5 seconds for each daze you throw at your target regardless if the daze interrupts or not?