Guild Wars 2

At this point I feel pretty certain we are going to see nerfs, and honestly I do not like my class being at the top of the heap and drawing in “flavor of the month” players. There is something about playing mesmer that requires a little more of you to play well and I think that was lost somewhat this patch. At any rate, with all this QQ nerfs are coming I think, I just hope they aren’t over the top.

I’m kind of worried because the complaints are getting so insane: It started out about PU and CS, but I’ve seen people now talk about BD, our dmg in general, mantras passively recharging, Inspiration being OP and on and on, basically just looking to gut our whole class back to pre-patch non-functionality.

To me it’s obvious that our burst is not the problem. Our ability to one-shot has not changed since pre-patch out of proportion with other classes; shatter could always one-shot glass, and with the overall increase in dmg shatter can one-shot tankier classes. A nerf to our dmg would be a terrible balance decision and a huge over-nerf.

The culprits are CS and PU. The stun from CS is sweet, but everyone knows it just isn’t right combined with everything else. Everyone also knows that PU gives way too much stealth in addition to everything else.

CS should be changed to a flat and significant increase to daze duration, like 50-100%. That makes it a solid boost to our CC fitting the domination line, but also completely removes the complaints by players of getting gibbed during a stun; nobody complains about daze being OP and is taken seriously.

PU should be, well, I dunno, taken out back and shot? Honestly the supposed deal with PU is “mesmer’s aren’t supposed to get hit.” Ok, well how about instead of doubling stealth it doubles our invulnerability and evade duration? Now we aren’t getting hit as much, and people can’t cry about bursts from stealth. Or instead of boons in stealth, just have some kind of static pulse of defensive boons somehow. Those aren’t really good, just examples, all I’m saying is there are plenty of non-stealth mechanics to use for “not getting hit” and PU should just involve some combination of those other mechanics, not stealth.

If the stun from CS were gone and the stealth duration increase from PU were gone I think we would see the crying cut down by 90%, more importantly the Flavor of the month players would go somewhere else and mesmers could go back to quietly kicking kitten out of the spotlight.

The stun is sweet to be sure, but I think combined with the burst we can do I’m going to say at this point it is over the top. I think the stun should be removed and it should increase daze duration by 50-100% and as said by others should be swapped with mental anguish.

I think a 10 sec cd will not stop the qq at all really, given that MW is on basically that cd, so you will still be able to stun every time MW is up.

Inspiration is great, I run it all the time. It’s one of the best balance trait lines we have now, and thank god it is actually worth something after so long. The cleanses and sustain it gives is great. As said above it’s an awesome alternative to PU for those wanting to devote a line to defense.

With all the crying for nerfs I expect them, but the worst imo would be to mess with inspiration.

Hate to embarrass myself by mentioning WoWarcraft, but in that game when you took dmg you got unstealthed. Rogues (thieves) there were still very strong and you just played around it. IMO this actually made stealth much more workable. Also any attack, even if you missed, brought you out of stealth. So if you saw a thief stealth you could hit the area with aoe and bring them out, and if you anticipated the attack with a defensive ability and the thief’s attack missed he came out of stealth.

I think stealth in this game is lame because you can just eat dmg in stealth and attack into invuln or aegis without cost. Everyone saying it’s awesome knows it’s crap and doesn’t want to lose their abusive and admittedly fun mechanic.

The lack of stealth canceling abilities is kittening kittened.

As said above, every class should have two abilities that if they hit a stealthed target immediately bring that target out of stealth.

It’s just that there are people who like abusing the kittened stealth mechanics in this game and those who don’t. Anet has made the calculation that they can get more players by including the stealth player base.

Edit: And for everyone saying omfg how could thieves exist with any changes to stealth?! In GW1 stealth was nothing like how it is in GW2 and thieves existed just fine.

Are you unable to get the HoM because it’s down/bugged? I played GW1 far from religiously, didn’t worry about any achievements and didn’t finish most of the story lines etc. Basically very casual and I was still able to get the full set when I linked it to GW2. If you just sorta played GW1 you should have enough points for the armor. Unless as said it’s down/bugged.

I didn’t see a post in the first 4 pages of the bug forum. What are our worst bugs right now? Here is my list:

1) Mender’s purity not working on 2nd (3rd if traited with HM) mantra of recovery activation. This one really sucks and is the worst current bug imo, losing half the condi cleanse hurts.

2) Malicious Sorcery attack speed part of trait not working. This one also sucks, as the painfully slow AA on scepter is still a big bummer. The weapon would actually be good if this part of the trait worked. Without the attack speed increase, it still has a little bit of that old feeling of a non-functional weapon from before, though less of course with the confusing images change.

3)Duelist’s Discipline not working with iDuelist phantasm. I tried giving pistol a go in a condi build, and without this trait working (and post mtd nerf) there just is not enough pressure. With MoD, persistence of memory and playing right, I could really pump out iDuelists, but it just wasn’t worth it dmg wise without the bleed part of this trait working. If it worked it might give condi mesmers an option besides just camping staff :-/

Maybe if the attack speed increase on MS wasn’t bugged and actually worked… They should fix the bug and increase the attack speed by 20%.

The slowness of the AA is the only issue, the clone on third attack is nice. Nobody is running a phantasm build camping three phants and going AA on scepter… or if they are they shouldn’t be.

Scepter is a solid weapon now, just fix the attack speed bug and it will be great.

You are asking for a nerf to Inspiration. A kittening nerf to inspiration… God forbid that trait line actually be worth anything or that mesmers have an option besides PU for some survivability.

R. Illusions isn’t that great, it’s a small heal and 1 condition per shatter, it shouldn’t compete with Mental Defense. The choice between focus trait and RI is actually well balanced, they are on par: nice reflects or some extra sustain on shatter. Protected phantasms is also good there, in wvw you’d take that over RI any day. Each choice in the middle tier fits the 3 modes: reflects for pve, RI for pvp and protected phant for wvw zerging.

The swap you are suggesting is a flat out nerf to a trait line that is miraculously not garbage for the first time almost ever. Nerfing it would just encourage more ppl to go into PU for sustain, which is bad.

If anything they should buff the scaling with healing power of RI etc. in inspiration to make it more competitive with PU. Especially since most ppl know some kind of nerf to PU is at least not unlikely, nerfing inspiration is a really bad idea.

I think it was intended: I believe it was said another class was getting mantras in HoT. When the dev team began working on that, the people in charge of that other classes specialization realized how absolutely kittenty mantras were, and since the other class is not mesmer, this could not stand. Thus mantras were changed to actually function well.

That is my guess, I hope things stay this way.

This is one of the most insane posts I have ever seen.

The new trait system is so good, this was the best patch ever. It’s so hard to understand how anyone could prefer things pre-patch I ’m not even going to try.

The one exception to this is persistence of memory, that trait rules. Otherwise yes I prefer static 20% reductions.

I don’t like stealth. I don’t like PU. However, I don’t want to see PU just nerfed with nothing in return. I’d love it if mesmers didn’t use stealth at all and just had other strengths to play without it. The second part is key, just nerfing stealth without buffing something else would be dumb. For now I use stealth (without PU) because if I don’t I’m gimping myself. I’d like this to change.

Yes. I didn’t think it would happen, but DE doesn’t seem as mandatory now, having a great time without it most of the time. There are moments here and there where I feel caught without illusions, but those moments are fleeting, not critical and easily avoided as I get more used to not having DE. It’s really fine, I’m very happily surprised.

Well, not sure if this is what you are looking for, but you can turn off voice sounds in the sound panel. This will turn off all voices, even opponents etc., but if you are really going crazy maybe it will be worth the relief.

I take pride in the ability to admit when I’m wrong: I thought DE was for sure going to still be mandatory after the patch, but I’m finding that not to be the case.

I really think duelling is pretty crappy now, with DE competing with other GM’s I’d like to take, with the further nerf to vigor, and most of all the removal of confusing combatants, I really don’t see it as that great a line. Just about any other line gives it a run for it’s money.

It seems with cd reducing traits, persistence of memory and building for it one can have ample illusion generation without DE.

So, I apologize to Anet for complaining about DE still being mandatory when traits were first release. I was wrong and this is a really great change for mesmer, possibly the best change from patch (hard to say though with so many amazing QoL and other changes).

Best time in GW2 yet, love this patch. So many great changes.

I think it is a little wild that people can take dom/duel/chaos and get PU plus full shatter burst, haven’t done it myself but expect nerfs due to this.

I think it’s insane for anyone to complain about a build based around interrupting skills, as it’s just a fact of this game that consistently landing interrupts is hard and is only “spammable” against a spammy opponent. I expect most complaints are from people complaining about the above PU shatter build who just take CS and MoD for extra lolz.

Inspiration is a great line. I don’t really care if PU get’s nerfed, I think dmg should be toned down across the board and not just mesmers; we don’t deserve any dmg nerfs alone.

I think CS could use an increased ICD as has been suggested, and PU, well, I don’t really care as I don’t play it myself and don’t really mind fighting it.

I’m testing a build currently and having a really great time, but sadly don’t want to post anything about what I’m doing because I think nerfs are still incoming and so am laying low for now :P

Edit: Has malicious sorcery been fixed? Can’t tell if I’m seeing an increase in attack speed, I think not still.

Uh I’m a very heterosexual dude and I love that unicorn. In fact I’d say that unicorn is bad kitten . People see that unicorn and are all like “wtf, what is that unicorn doing the…” right before they get downed and I’m like “kitten about my unicorn kitten!”

Agree, inspiration is amazing.

This thread is insane, like seriously this is just crazy. Yes probably the vulnerability + the new GM buffing MW is a boost in dmg, but only if you are full glass.

As people said, and as everyone knew, CS was going to be stupidly powerful combined with the above, but there are very reasonable ways to deal with this, as have been suggested.

Crying for nerfs… I just…wha?

Edit: Also yes following up on what Chaos said above, it’s not like the changes made mesmers faceroll, the class just actually kinda works well now, shocking I know.

“Hey I don’t have to bend over backwards to have a baseline level of functionality on my class now, hmm, this is weird.”

The benchmark for mesmer “skill” just went up is all. It used to be lower because it was so hard to just have a minimal level of effectiveness relative to other classes. Now if you want to feel great on a mesmer, just go for it and do better then you ever could before. Wishing it was hard like before so you can go back to feeling good about managing to do anything in a match before you were downed by a thief is weak.

MandJ.8965:

Quadox.7834:

Still thief /15chars

Nope

Condi Ele is really strong..

ele feels like joke to me, though I’m taking inspiration.

My decoy is 32 sec. There are weird things happening though, I had to redo my traits a few times after zoning into wvw and back to spvp for example, it changed from what I had originally set in spvp the first time.

Is this in the patch notes? Sounds almost too good to be true. This means if you space out your uses you never actually experience the cd, just the charge time. To be honest this is actually totally balanced, just so gigantic an improvement form the horrible way they have been that I doubt it’s real.

Perhaps though they did this because another class is getting mantras for their elite specialization and Anet realized they had to make the functionality not garbage.

Is there any confirmation that it is down to 1 stack with no accompanying duration increase? Even if they added a duration increase though, it really doesn’t help. The point is to “burst,” which means more stacks and less duration. They should have just nerfed duration.

Don’t forget also the changes to confusion. When you shatter you apply torment and a non-useless version of confusion. It’s not obvious to me that this nerf to MtD means condi mesmer is done.

I really think people are majorly overreacting with all this “shelve my mesmer” stuff. We still got a huge amount of buffs, and it remains to be seen what kind of condi builds we can do. I mean isn’t chaos/dueling/illusions going to be pretty crazy? All the staff goodness, PU, scepter and torch buffs, DE and bleeds and confusion on crits. Yeah, not at all obvious to me that this is the end of the world…

Edit Edit: Just read about confusing combatants change; this is dumb.

Not the first to note this, but thought it deserved it’s own thread:

How bad will this vigor nerf be to shatter builds relying on DE? My guess is kinda bad.

Some will say chrono makes up for this, but in so doing you are just trading needing one trait in order to function for another, the problem is still clone generation being too weak without said trait.

With the many great changes coming next week I’m still excited, however this vigor nerf hits us much harder than other classes due to DE imo.

I’m sure this isn’t perfect, but at first read, this is kittening perfect.

I’m ecstatic. Inspiration is kittening rad, Illusion changes are rad. Look at the GM in inspiration Mental Defense, are you kittening serious? Summon phantasmal defender when you block or dodge? Wtf, that is a simultaneous buff to illusion generation and survivability, totally insanely awesome.

MtD is now Master level freeing up another GM in illusions? Incredibly awesome. Buff to scepter attack speed, also very awesome.

This is just so great, absolutely wonderful. I’m sure there are things to complain about if you try, but omfg hell yes cannot wait to play next week!!

Tried running this with sword/t and as expected, it was horrible. Switched to staff and it was very fun. I ran 0/6/0/2/6 with menders and HM and it has solid sustain. Lot’s of fun.

Once update drops with changes to condi dmg/scaling etc. it will be interesting to see what the best stats are for this kind of hybrid.

I actually run centaur runes, which work well with mender’s and mantra. Post update I think I’ll be dueling/illusions/inspiration. Inspiration looks great(fingers crossed they don’t neuter it).

As far as losing boon-strip, I find condis to be a pretty good counter to boon stacking classes, as protection is really the only bad one (and I guess regen, but you can spike through that). I have been playing without boon-strip in various builds and I don’t notice it at all. Granted I mostly hot join and roam, no serious tpvp.

Edit: One thing I haven’t tried and am planning to, is GS with scepter/torch. The stealth from torch is really nice, and I wonder if this would be a nice compromise. The block really doesn’t replace the evade from sword, but maybe you’d have condi pressure enough to compete with staff. Given the new traits in illusions you could trait torch and scepter.

running any power build with any weapons: Medi Guard for sure. That build (and the whole class imo) is so faceroll I just hate it.

What will this actually change though? No clone death, so is your PU build just PU + staff clones? PU will still be PU, people can just walk away from you. Say Dueling+Chaos+Illusions. Yes this is a strong condi shatter bunker, but still a condi bunker. Most classes currently cannot kill a condi bunker mesmer, so that won’t change, and after the patch this kind of condi bunker build will still be unable to chase, so that won’t change either. Overall I don’t think we will see lots of QQ or things be that drastically different than it is now as regards staff condi mesmers; they will be stronger, but fill the exact same function and role as they do now, with the same overall strengths and weaknesses.

It was nerfed into nothing long ago and has not punished anyone really for a long time. It is super rare to actually “spike” anyone with confusion now. Nobody said it was a bug, what they said was that often confusion did almost nothing.

This is a great change. The only reason to cry would be if they hadn’t nerfed confusion super hard already, as in if this were back when confusion builds actually worked.

Tealots.6095:

@MSFone, I’m repeating myself a bit here, but don’t knock the s-t/sc-p combo. It takes some getting used to as a mid-range harasser/skirmisher, but I’ve had a lot of fun with it. Especially when you get get a duelist or two out, and just bait some defensive skills.

I believe you, I just love my GS :P Especially after making an ascended zerker, can’t go back. Imo GS is just too strong, especially in roaming. In any build with a real power component imo GS is always better than no GS.

Pistol is cool but imo it only works on unaware opponents and is pretty unreliable. Just a few autos kills the duelist, not to mention random aoe. On the outskirts of a group fight sure, set up duelists and watch em go, but it’s too situational for me. GS just works.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I think it will work with blurred frenzy.

This will be insanely awesome if true, and I actually doubt it will survive a long before a nerf if so.

I had the same question, as presumably power shatter post patch will have no additional condition dmg beyond base stats. I would guess you are right in the above. I think on the other hand that condi builds will be even stronger post patch, and most of those take staff. So really this will just make GS sw/t shatter even more preferred over double ranged. Since sw/t is already generally preferred, this actually won’t change things too much I think,

Tried running this again last night, had a pretty good time.

Opinions wanted: staff or scepter/torch?

Edit: Actually, probably giving up too much mobility with scepter/torch over staff. Lately I’ve been playing power shatter again and have gotten really used to sw/torch. I may try this with sw/t as well and see how it goes. I fear I may be giving up too much pressure though.

Might as well add that depending on how they build, running may be your best option as if they go really bunker, they can’t chase you and you are probably not going to kill them. The build can be done is such a way that it’s entire purpose is to kill people who try to kill the mesmer. Unless you have zero condi clear you can leave them alone and be pretty ok. A condi mesmer will (usually) only really jack you if you try to pressure it too hard.

If someone came here and said “Hi please give me a build where if someone tries to kill me they can’t and I probably kill them” almost everyone would tell them to go with some condi build, and not necessarily PU either anymore. Probably half the people you are fighting have built specifically to be ungankable by thieves.

Confusion hasn’t been worth much for a long time, I’d say it’s pretty crap right now. I love this change as this will make it a more reliable damage condition. People stopped getting “spiked” with confusion long ago, at which point it became kitten.

This is going to make confusion much, much better for us.

I think this will be an awesome build come the trait revamp. I’ve tried running something similar recently, but playing shatter without IP just drove me crazy. Once IP is baseline, I think a build along these lines will be pretty cool to try.

My opinion is that the “hybrid” part of this build, currently without IP, is only good for having GS. You kill people much faster as full condi currently with maim I think. As I said, once IP is baseline and depending on the numbers for MW, it may be a different story.

Edit: Also, nice vid

Chaos Archangel.5071:

MSFone.3026:

It’s funny that the OP didn’t actually mention what build he is running. While it’s safe to assume it’s standard shatter, it is amusing that this whole argument about shatter (again guys, really?) got started by people in the thread without the OP ever mentioning what build he is running. He also didn’t really say what his goal was, except vaguely to not die in 2-4 seconds. It’s funny how easy it is for the never ending build argument over shatter to get going.

My 2 cents: The argument over what build is best is seriously dumb, because “best” depends on the goals of the individual player. If your goal is to just never get killed, play PU. If you goal is to 1 shot people, play shatter. If your goal is some reasonable mix of the two, well, on it goes.

Actually, the argument isn’t about which build is best. The argument is moreso over whether or not switching your build to deal with a specific class is a good decision and is the trade off worth it.

Jurica.1742:

You’re not going to do as good with a build that isnt shatter. If you would, it would be played in ESLs. Thats a fact. If you could do equally well with a shatter and a maim mesmer build, why don’t we see them in ESLs?

@Chaos: Just because any claim of confusion on my part irks me, the above shows that while some here may not be getting into the old shatter argument, that argument is clearly present.

Jumping Puzzles: Awesome part of the game, love em.

It’s funny that the OP didn’t actually mention what build he is running. While it’s safe to assume it’s standard shatter, it is amusing that this whole argument about shatter (again guys, really?) got started by people in the thread without the OP ever mentioning what build he is running. He also didn’t really say what his goal was, except vaguely to not die in 2-4 seconds. It’s funny how easy it is for the never ending build argument over shatter to get going.

My 2 cents: The argument over what build is best is seriously dumb, because “best” depends on the goals of the individual player. If your goal is to just never get killed, play PU. If you goal is to 1 shot people, play shatter. If your goal is some reasonable mix of the two, well, on it goes.

I’m still having a blast, but I think it depends on your frequency of play. I’ve taken breaks for weeks or even months a few times, and usually I’ll play constantly for a couple weeks, then break for a week.

That said, I think wvw is still very fun. I’m on FA, and I still see plenty of action, both roaming and zerg anytime I go into wvw. Eotm can actually be quite hilarious and fun if you do it right. Plenty of up levels to gank and you get into good fights with other like minded roamers.

I don’t know when you left, but I think since they added the newer wvw dailies I’ve seen things a little more active in wvw as well. For example if the daily is kill the veteran, check the veterans and you’ll usually find someone camping them or if you wait a min run into someone looking to get their daily done.

Pvp is still good fun too (though I’m mostly hot join nowadays since idgaf.

As I said to me the most important thing about gw2 is do not grind it! Just don’t slam the game until you are blue in the face and it’s great. Take breaks, don’t play every day. This game only gets old if you overdo it. But if you’re looking for a game to just play every day for hours, yes you will still get quickly burned out and bored I think.

Just change it to passive buff for each mantra equipped. If you are taking a mantra and taking a trait for mantra, you are already gimping yourself enough and should be rewarded just for having it on your bar in place of another utility, not to mention taking an actual trait to boot.

I hope this doesn’t mean super nerfed, because imo a few traits looks really strong. With base IP, heal on shatter and condi cleanse on shatter look great. Thinking those along with menders for a sweet shatter build with really good survivability.

Yes though some traits look dumbed also, basically the phantasm ones lol. I just hope they don’t leave us in the dust in terms of self sustain.

Not to derail the good vibes train, but it’s refreshing to see someone saying something different than the “fight on point or you a bad” standard line re. tpvp. For example, the most common one: Stealth is useless for a mesmer in tpvp because nodes decap while you are in stealth. Yeah, true it decaps, but as Jurica points out dead players can’t cap anything. I wish people would keep in mind the value of killing an enemy player, it’s 20 sec of outnumbered fighting in your teams favor.

So, good vibe spin: A mesmer build can be useful in pvp as long as you kill lots of players with it.

Fay.2357:

shantasm

lol is this a new word or have you used it elsewhere? Sometimes when I down a thief with izerker F1, I feel a little shantasm happen…

Dondagora.9645:

This changes every— nothing. Look, they can now see their F1 on CD! Look, they can now not use whatever they stole before which still put their F1 on CD and replace it with something new after that CD is over!

It actually makes no difference whatsoever to us. They’ve still got ectoplasm, now they just get the choice not to use it~ No idea how this is bad news to anyone. QoL, not a buff.

I concur, don’t see how this is a thing at all. If anything it adds some micro to it that wasn’t there before, they actually have to hit another button now.

I’ve read various places that at this point in time, for just power vs precision, power is the better choice. Obviously this makes no sense if your builds is condition, I’m assuming you are running a power build.

Also, how are you dumping hundreds of gold on infusions? I buy mine with laurels and badges. Do you mean your ascended gear? Can you not overwrite an old infusion with a new one? If not, that is dumb.

LOL, well done, thanks for the laugh.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

So, my mesmer was pretty much forged in the mists. I spend 90% of my time in PvP since my friends grinded me to death on dungeon runs (that weren’t actually runs so much as a collection of dungeon exploits) and I was happy there until I recently upgraded my computer. Now I can roam in WvW without compromising my graphics, so I decided to explore this bold new world that until now I’ve only had very brief ventures in.

So, you often hear that your average WvW player isn’t nearly as good as your average PvPer, and I really wanted to see if it was true. So I’m running around on my PvP build (4/4/6 Staff sword-focus CI pack runes, fire+energy & doom+hydromancy) and while at first the world was barren and boring.. I came upon an enemy supply camp.

I tried to flip it cuz.. Pfft. Everyone else solo-flips camps why not I? .. 3 minutes later in chased out of the camp by like 9 angry NPCs.

.. Right into 3 enemy players on a team.

So I break the eff out, they’re chasing me, and as I’m running I stop to really take a good look at my terrain .. This isn’t PvP, I don’t need to fight on point, these guys are likely bad.. I can take these fools!

And so it began. I turned around vs a guardian, necro, and ele and charged back in. Necro was too slow to keep up, Ele was too tanky to do damage and the guardian was just kinda bad. Even though I was kind of wishing for Greatsword (which seems far superior to staff in WvW) I managed to wreck them all in a way that woulda made osicat and vashury proud.

3v1? The way I was managing my decoy and blinks it may as well have been 3 on 3. It was glorious.

This is an awesome story and a good example of why wvw is pretty awesome. There is just something you can get roaming that you can’t really get in pvp. My friend and I call pvp the “danger room” (like in Xmen) where you go to train and get good, and going out into wvw is the real deal where you take the skills you are honing in pvp and dominate fools, or get into serious battles with others like yourself. Good stuff.

Edit: I agree that roaming without GS is just sub optimal no matter how you slice it.
Edit Edit: Though actually staff probably helped you very much in that 3v1. It’s the eternal trade-off, ability to chase vs increased ability to win outnumbered fights against people who won’t run.

It will be interesting to see how the dmg increase to MW from MoF compares to the Dom GM of 25% (50% inactive). I can’t imagine they would have MoF be anywhere close to that kind of dmg boost, because ofc people would take both and have super shatters. Considering we are already close to top burst in the game, and IP going baseline, something has to give in terms of the numbers.

What I sincerely hope doesn’t happen is a flat nerf to base dmg along with IP going baseline, basically requiring some other traits to achieve the burst we have now when we take IP.

I don’t understand Sinister gear, could you explain why you are using it over rabid or something else?

Isn’t one of the benefits of running condi the increased survivability? Why go glass condition? Glass defense with max burst offense makes sense, glass defense with over time offense makes less it seems.