Guild Wars 2

Me Games Ma.8426:

Levetty.1279:

Ambushes so far are confusion and torment base, crap in PvE.

Let’s say torment and confusion damage is crap in PvE, ok. How does condi rev deal a lot of damage via torment if that’s the case?

It also inflicts burning and poison, does it in an AoE and has decent power scaling on those skills. Has a trait that increases torment damage, among other damage modifiers.

Me Games Ma.8426:

How’s that crap for open world?

Single Target, Confusion and Torment, illusion based.

Me Games Ma.8426:

We just got a tool to retarget Illusions… Read Axe 3 again

Now you are just trolling. Axe is terrible with no damage, retargeting your 3 axe clones isn’t going to be worth bringing that kitten.

Fair enough on the sigil of Stamina though.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Going to have to step in and disagree heavily with this because I want Mirage to be viable in all game modes and you don’t know what you’re asking for.

GM Trait: Dune Cloak: Use Sand shards when you gain mirage cloak. Conditions applied to bleeding foes have increased duration (20%).
Sand shards: AOE bleeds 2 stacks, 6 seconds, 5 target aoe, 180 radius.

If infinite horizon becomes a minor, all illusions get both an ambush attack AND sand shards every time the mirage gains a mirage cloak. That’s going to break balance for a few reasons.

1) The damage is currently balanced around one or the other of these GMs. Having both means that one, or more likely both, get nerfed heavily.

2) Infinite horizon looks easy to counter in PvP. All the illusions attack at the same time so 1 dodge will counter it all. The scepter, staff and axe ambushes (don’t know about the sword/gs yet) are projectiles and likely to be reflectable. Sand shards is instant AOE. Not OP if it’s just the Mirage. 4 procs of an instant cast aoe damage.. is a problem for Sand shard balance.

3) Mesmers have been asking for damage to be tied less to illusions regardless of PvE illusion issues in certain fights or WvW “My illusions blow up instantly and are useless” reasons. I see sand shards as a illusionless DPS GM while infinite horizon is the illusion DPS GM. They should remain mutually exclusive so that both can be balanced to be strong in their respective areas.

Especially for the WvW zerg players that want to DPS as a mesmer, infinite horizon can’t be a minor because they need something like Sand shards to work. Instead we should be asking for a buff to Sand shards. That 180 radius is pitiful. Also think it needs more damage.

Sand shards is kitten, nobodies going to care about a small amount of bleeding that you have to be in melee ranged to be hit by, whther a Mesmer is the one doing it or a Mesmer is doing it and the 3 clones you are nowhere near are doing it. Either way they can make it so it doesn’t effect clones.

1. No since the trait exists they are going to balance the damage around the presumption that you have that GM, thats how they always balance.

2. See first paragraph.

3. The damage is already tied to illusions, see point 1. There is nothing in this spec that makes any significant damage come from the Mesmer itself.

In it current state if you don’t pick that GM trait then the new mechanics of the elite spec is having a dodge that is worse then Base Mesmer’s dodge. How is that good?

Ambushes so far are confusion and torment base, crap in PvE. If sword and GS have power ambushes it still won’t help for the same reason Mind Wrack doesn’t make Mesmer good in open world pve. Illusions don’t work well against easily killed mobs and once you have done your big attack, now what? The rest of your skills are kitten.

People keep saying Mirage will be able to evade all over the place but I don’t see how. We already have vigor on shatter in Chaos and Dueling used to give perma vigor, and Mesmer can use Sigils, you’ve never seen Mesmers evading all over the place.

Fay.2357:

Saraneth.6021:

Fay.2357:

“Play how you want” has never and will never mean “I can put together some random pile of garbage, call it a build, and expect everyone else to carry my dead weight through content.”

Sorry darling, but we are not talking about trash builds here. We are talking about the NEW elite spec. Get your kitten together before you reply!

Shrug

If the new elite spec isn’t good at DPS, then it’s a trash build for a raid. Not every spec is meant to be used in every part of the game, that’s just how it works in reality.

Well Chrono has a role as support in raids and and condi spam in PVP

Mirage and base Mesmer has a role nowhere. I don’t think its too much to ask that one of them be useful in the biggest part of the game or anywhere really.

LughLongArm.5460:

Levetty.1279:

LughLongArm.5460:

Cant compare similar abilities/traits between 2 professions.

The Ranger trait Natural Vigor got nerfed and their reason was because it was stronger then the Engineer trait.

When they nerfed natural vigot it was when they nerfed all endurance regen skills and traits across the board. Same way they did with stability not so long ago.

No it was back when Devs sometimes posted on the forum. They nerfed Natural Vigor, we complained and a Dev posted saying it was being done because it was a minor trait that was as good as Engies GM.

The forum has no search feature so I can’t prove you are lying but we all know you are.

LughLongArm.5460:

Cant compare similar abilities/traits between 2 professions.

The Ranger trait Natural Vigor got nerfed and their reason was because it was stronger then the Engineer trait.

Looking at Mantra resolve and Guardian’s Mantras it looks like Gaurdians have a smaller charge time for the charges but a longer cooldown and the final charge is more powerful whereas Mesmers have a longer charge time for the charges but a smaller cooldown and an added effect on the first 2 1/2 second cast.

So Guards have to think about if they want to use their big attack and suffer a longer cooldown or not whereas Mesmers are still supposed to spam through them. As the problem with Mantras is the big cast time looks like they are still going to be terrible, especially Mesmer’s.

If you want resistance you want it now, not in 2 1/2 seconds.

1. Infinite Horizon
When you gain Mirage Cloak, the trait is also applied to all of your illusions.

Imagine Druids had to pick between GOTL or actually getting Avatar skills
Imagine Chrono had to pick a certain GM to get Continuum Shift
Imagine Berserkers had to pick a certain GM to get burst mode.
Imagine Revs had to pick a certain GM trait to be able to swap legends.

This whole spec baffles me, its pretty obvious they threw something together last and didn’t give it as much thought as the other specs.

Kadj.6725:

Levetty.1279:

Building up Phantasms to kill things in solo PvE is already pretty terrible, swapping the direct damage of Phantasms for PvP focused conditions isn’t going to make it better.

We’re back to Deceptive Evasion. Enter combat, axe 2, dodge, jaunt(procs +clone trait), axe 3, ambush, Cry of Frustration. We’d lose moa for it, but gain a large three-skill burst that leaves an entire weapon set and two phantasms off cooldown open for abuse whether the enemy survives the burst or not. (also jaunt is optional I guess, but I’m under the assumption we’ll still want portal/Sig of Illusions/blink and not some other Deception skill.)

There’s not any more buildup than we already need to set up, and I think you may have forgotten just how quickly core mesmer can pull enough clones out for burst with DE. This isn’t “clones are phantasms now”, this is “clones can pressure.” And the pressure is kept up if you use /pistol and you run those traits, etc.

No, its setting up clones as if they were Phantasms to do the damage, anybody who plays open world PvE can see this spec is kitten. Its a gimmicky PvP only spec.

InsaneQR.7412:

SeYYiD.2740:

Am i the only one really disappointed because mirage is a condi spec?… I bet I am not the only one who was hoping for a power dps spec this expansion :/ I mean we already have condi play on the base mesmer… we lack a proper power spec.

But WP showed in his stream that they balanced alot of stuff ( condi reaper -> power reaper) maybe they will rework base mesmer to be a power spec?

dont throw your hopes away for now. we get ambush skills everytime we go into mirage cloak which can be done very frequently it seems and i assume you get power based ambush-burst skills from power weapons. It has a condi melee weapon but it was the weapon that was missing from mesmer so i am not surprised.
For now i looks just bursty in general and can be used for both. All the utilities are centered arround deception and cloaking.

Its missing a power dps weapon, a ranged power dps weapon, a ranged condi dps weapon and from the looks of it , we still won’t get a melee condi dps weapon.

Kadj.6725:

This is a pvp+solo pve spec and nothing more.

Building up Phantasms to kill things in solo PvE is already pretty terrible, swapping the direct damage of Phantasms for PvP focused conditions isn’t going to make it better.

glenndevis.8327:

Here are some of the tooltip infos for the utilities. Keep in mind I couldn’t see the full tooltips in the video.

False Oasis: Create a mirage at your c urrent location and heal over time. When the mirage expires it spawns a mirage mirror.
Healing: 1,620. 5 pulses. Mirage duration: 3 seconds. Grants vigor. 0,75 sec cast time. 30 sec cooldown.

Crystal Sands: Draw in shhards of crystal sand that confuse foes they pass through on their way to your targeted location. The shards form a Mirage Mirror upon reaching their destination.
0,25 sec cast time. hits 6×. 1 stack confusion for 7,5 sec (per hit i’d assume). 20 sec cooldown.

Sand through glass: Evade backwards and leave behind a mirage mirror.
distance 300, evade 0,5 seconds. 30 sec cooldown.

Jaunt: Shadowstep to a target location and confuse nearby foes.
3 stacks of confusion for 7,5 sec. Removes 1 condi. Has 3 charges. 20 sec to recharge 1 charge. 0,5 sec cooldown between charge uses i assume. I think this is their elite.
I hope it has a stunbreak as well (even though they’d have too many stunbreaks.) Keep in mind these are only half of the tooltips.

I think i’m missing 1 utility. Not sure if it’s been shown somewhere.
Source: AuroraPeachy’s video.

Weaver has a utility that spams aoe burn around them.

Truly Mirage is OP

Carighan.6758:

Taltevus.3289:

Do you seriously believe that Elite Spec’s Mechanics are going to fly? Seriously ask yourselves.

Well… considering that there is another class which had this mechanic still launch and had it repeatedly buffed despite having a plethora of engage and escape options even outside of their ambush (and we don’t even get constant stealth), I’d say… yeah?

It’s a very normal thing to have?

I mean look at the skills found in the beta. They’re not that strong. At all.

What are you talking about dude, 600 damage unload! 600! You can get that up to 2400 if you build up your clones and waste a dodge! GG Pistol thief and longbow Ranger we the new pew pewers

They need to do something with Phantasms with this spec otherwise every weapon set is going to have one less skill as you will want to avoid using them as clones will be better.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/All-Mirage-Skills-and-Traits/first#post6666608

According to this post at least the staff and Axe ambush attacks ahve a 1 second recharge so at most we will only be able to use it twice with one dodge. Still it will be interesting to see how it works.

With regards to people upset that Soulbeast is getting rid of the pet, I think we are going to find that the most optimal playstyle, or at least an interesting one is to jump in and out of Beast mode to trigger traits, use pet F2s and swap pets.

Dagger is my ‘low point’ of the Soulbeast so far and even then it looks effective, good damage and the double leap with quickness looks great.

Rashagar.8349:

I love this part of the release phase where theorycrafting and suppositions are running wild, and balance is sort of hand waved aside since nothing is set in stone but everyone is still thinking up combos to try out for fun (as opposed to when it’s already “solved”)
On that note has anyone seen what it looks like when eg. the ranger is the one using a bird’s swoop or a wyvern’s wing buffet? Not really in a position right now to trawl through videos for things like that.

https://youtu.be/lhFrgfUw2c4?t=20

Aluren.1896:

Minor Trait: Speed of Sand:
Gain Superspeed (3/4 second) when you gain Mirage Cloak.

kittenty band aid fix to the kittenty gimmick they are forcing with this kittenty spec.

Aluren.1896:

Third Column of Major Traits-

1. Infinite Horizon
When you gain Mirage Cloak, the trait is also applied to all of your illusions.

Wait so to use the kittenty gimmick that they are trying to sell this kitten spec with you need to chose a specific GM trait that competes with the only dps focused trait in the line?

Shiren.9532:

This might be how they make up for losing the raw stats of a ranger pet. If pets are classified into types and give buffs like according to their type (Deadly for DPS condi pets like Ibogas and maybe spiders, possibly something like Hearty for toughness and vitality from bears?) then this is the stat buff rangers have been asking for. I’m skeptical if it will be enough for the low damage numbers rangers get from their weapons – especially power rangers who are already struggling really bad.

Condi from Ranger doesn’t suffer the same problem as power attacks do of lower coefficents because of the Pet. That is why our Condi build is so much better.

So a small stat buff, the condis dagger seems to be able to stack and new pet skills should result in Condi being pretty good and making up for no pet. If power gets the same stat buff, say 150 power and 150 ferocity, then it definetly won’t make up for the lack of Pet, hopefully some of the pet merges add some pretty hard hitting power skills and maybe a power pet merge will give % increases instead.

glenndevis.8327:

I saw some of them but im not home so i cant remember everythi g and cant post em in detail.

If i remember correctly theres this crystal like aoe that causes bleeding.
A blink that causes confusion to enemies around you.
And their elite is something that changes your position (possibly with one of your clones?) In case the enemy spots who the real mesmer is you can just change positions. Also has the ‘ammunition’ system i think. If i remember correctly WP mentioned it on his stream.

Yeah those scream DPS to me.

Aylaine.1036:

Never thought I would see people complaining about Mesmer getting a much needed DPS spec. The world we live in , heh.

Its not a kittening DPS spec, thats the problem. Its a kittening gimicky PvP spec thats going to be nerfed into the ground because idiots think only Mirage can apply condis when every other class has a build that can spam condis like this.

Not one single kittening damage orientated trait outside of a condition duration grandmaster. Scourge is a support spec that has a trait that increases torment damage and applies burning, the same trait. How is this a kittening DPS spec?

aelfwe.4239:

I dont think mirage will be meta in pve\raid, crap conditions (confusion\torment) aside bleed and situational mechanics as cloack make it looks like an op pvp build but a niche (mathias\cairn) build for raid\pve.

Considering that guard is goin to stack permaquick (heal\aegis\stab gives 2 sec of quickness – 4 with boon duration) as well as sharing burning to other people every time he put quickness with 10sec icd + personal burning, we can expect him to do more dmg than chrono.

So our last anchor to meta is alacrity.

New rev spec is goin to take alacrity aside burning \0/

As a mesmer im a bit worried

If Chrono loses its Raid spot I am looking forward as to what reason people with come up with to say we should be crap in the rest of the game.

pico.6402:

There should be one more balance update before expansion. Maybe then we will get some answers.

Most likely one next week, I imagine that will be the last before expansion and it looks like it will be rather large.

In WP stream he said that all elites do the Chrono thing where each row is based around a theme (In chrono this was slow for top line,Alacrity/quickness for the middle and illusions for the bottom).

Based on the GM traits that could mean, top line gives us defense or healing, middle is stances or supoort and bottom damage.

‘Traits that affect your pet may affect you differently in Beast Mode’

http://imgur.com/a/yOwJy

Tayna.2419:

I think in the balance update before last the devs said they wanted to improve Mantras.

This, plus since a lot of other base and new elite spec skills have this building up charges mechanics, Mantras need a rework. Unfortunatly this looks like they will still be terrible.

Carighan.6758:

I’m excited! Means I don’t have to change my gear too much. Also, condi is a DPS spec. That’s the whole point.

It has a weapon that does terrible damage and 1 mediocre damage based trait, does noting to change our terrible damage on any other weapon, wheres the DPS?

MailMail.6534:

Rip Killshot Mesmer

Warrior is getting a Mesmer spec, so if anything it will be back with a vengeance.

No you see then Mirage might actually do some damage, we can’t have that.

Necro’s new support spec has better dps traits then our supposed dps line.

Azukas.1426:

You wrecking people by dodging. No skill activation needed.

Wait which is it?

Me Games Ma.8426:

Levetty.1279:

http://i.imgur.com/FValrpB.png

Tell me what gear is going to boost those numbers above joke values. I can run other classes naked and get more damage out of thier defense or support weapons then we get out of our DPS weapon.

Viper. I don’t see your problem. Look at the 3rd autoattacks condition doration. Yes the ramp time will be long but the values aren’t a problem i think.

Heres the skills for Ranger’s new melee condi weapon for comparison.
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/240994/soulbeast_auto.png

Azukas.1426:

Levetty.1279:

Fay.2357:

Most thief burst is targeted, with the exception of vault spammers.

And they can do the same to us with stelath. The relative ease of clone production vs Phantasm will help with all thier dodges and you are right that blur is better then blocks.

Those clones on roids are channeled attacks from what i can tell. That means you dodge while they are visible even if they stealth it’ll track em.

You guys have to remember I’m only interested in balance and high skill play. IDC if it’s my own class or my most hated class it’s broken it needs to be brought in line.

Fay knows i’m right

Yeah, Fay is your best friend.

Huh I would have guessed it was going to be Power, I guess they figured 3 power melee weapons was too much. Some decent looking condi removal options, looks like poison master might get some use.

I was also hoping for some life steal

Fay.2357:

Most thief burst is targeted, with the exception of vault spammers.

And they can do the same to us with stelath. The relative ease of clone production vs Phantasm will help with all thier dodges and you are right that blur is better then blocks.

Now you are getting it.

Now justify the spec, because having to set up clones and waste dodges to build a comparable amount of condis up that base Rev can aoe spam with better defence and actual damage modifiers isn’t cutting it.

Fay.2357:

Levetty.1279:

Fay.2357:

Azukas.1426:

Levetty.1279:

Azukas clowning reminds me. This spec provides absolutly nothing to stop us from being free kills to thief in PvP.

You shouldn’t be a free kill to thieves in PvP now

You dying to thieves isn’t GW2 balance but your own skill level.

It feels dirty to agree with Azukas, but condie chrono is fairly competitive against thieves. Mirage brings some shenanigans that should do even better if applied appropriately.

Has there ever been a time when a Phantasm build has done well against thiefs?

Well yes, but why are you using phantasm builds in 2017? Not sure what that has to do with this.

I do fine against thieves with Condi Chrono.

Mirages entire gimmick is using clones as suped up Phantasms with control over when they attack

Fay.2357:

Azukas.1426:

Levetty.1279:

Azukas clowning reminds me. This spec provides absolutly nothing to stop us from being free kills to thief in PvP.

You shouldn’t be a free kill to thieves in PvP now

You dying to thieves isn’t GW2 balance but your own skill level.

It feels dirty to agree with Azukas, but condie chrono is fairly competitive against thieves. Mirage brings some shenanigans that should do even better if applied appropriately.

Has there ever been a time when a Phantasm build has done well against thiefs?

now

Mirage isn’t now.

Azukas.1426:

Even Wooden Potatoes said it felt EXTREMELY over tuned. He’s a PvE freak….

No, he actually said a 2400 damaging unload with lots of build up required is EXTREMELY over tuned. That is how much he knows about the game.

Azukas clowning reminds me. This spec provides absolutly nothing to stop us from being free kills to thief in PvP.

phokus.8934:

Levetty.1279:

Curunen.8729:

I’m really struggling with the idea of giving up Time Marches On.

Don’t. There is not one game mode where Mirage will perform better.

Give me your crystal ball. Now.

http://imgur.com/a/XjK5V
plus playing the game since launch.

Curunen.8729:

I’m really struggling with the idea of giving up Time Marches On.

Don’t. There is not one game mode where Mirage will perform better.

zealex.9410:

Levetty.1279:

zealex.9410:

Last thing chrono needs os a buff. Of any kind.

Lowest dps increase of the 3 support classes in Raids
Lowest dps of the 3 support classes in Raids.
Useless in Open/Stories/Achievement hunting.

Lowest dps increase he says LUL your are delusional. I solo everything in open world fine idk about u and what should you be usefull to in open world? There you can tw and make pressing 1 a better experience for 10 ppl…

I don’t know what you are trying to say but that is ok because you don’t either.

Cyninja.2954:

Because high burst out of stealth has never been an issue in MMOs which draws a lot of hate from players.

I predict they will gut us like a dead fish the moment Mirage hits spvp and wvw.

At least there is some hope that with skill splitting pve might not be affected to hard.

We shall see.

So far all they have used the skill splits for is to buff skills that need help in PvE in PvP.

Cyninja.2954:

Levetty.1279:

Cyninja.2954:

It’ll be nice to be able to finally solo stuff in open world though if axe does provide some sort of consisten dps boost.

Its confusion and torment based.

I’ll give arenanet so much that I do think it’ll be better dps than our current builds with less of a hassle mechanic.

I mean we will improve from terrible at solo to mediocre at solo.

Let me have my small rays of light, they are so far between for this class.

Now all that is left is for one of the other support specs to outshine chrono (which considering the powercreep seen so far is very likely) and mesmer won’t be meta of any kind.

This way we can at least play the class in open world, somewhat.

Working as intended.

They won’t even give us the Confusion or Torment buffs that Base Rev or Scourge got.

They won’t even give our DPS spec a damage trait.

At least Chrono looked good when it released.

Cyninja.2954:

It’ll be nice to be able to finally solo stuff in open world though if axe does provide some sort of consisten dps boost.

Its confusion and torment based.

Its basically summon single target clones to attack instead of summon single target Phantasms to attack.

Its the same as our current DPS spec except slightly easier to set up and still just as uesless outside of 2 or 3 raid bosses. Oh and between the inevatable nerf to ambush attacks due to people already crying OP and the pathetic traits it will eventually end up doing less damage then our current DPS spec.

Irijia.6073:

Levetty.1279:

More Rangers asked for a perma stow on Pets then a poorly designed healer with a majority of filler utilities and traits.

Yes…and?

Come complain about Druid with me.

LughLongArm.5460:

It’s not permanent. It’s like the CA form. It called “Beast mode”, you combine with your pet for new abilities/altar existing abilities. If you can swap pets, it means tons of utility options,(kinda like engi kits). You will probably also get passive buff based on your pet. Good chance that pet related traits and skills will also apply on you.

It’s exactly what rangers needed.

Source?