Guild Wars 2

I was super amped on chrono at first as well, but now I kinda don’t care about it. I don’t see myself taking it in any build, because the revamped core trait lines just offer so much more. Look at Dueling: this is just amazing for any build, power or condi, not to mention imo DE is still totally mandatory. So that leaves two. I think illusions and Dom are both better than chrono, even inspiration is better than chrono imo. Look at the sustain you can get with inspiration now, it’s op.

This is just re. the traits though. I think it is really great they gave us wells with chrono, so people can actually do some zergin in wvw and have decent aoe. That part is really great.

This is a question on my mind as well: Suppose the choice was between staff or x/torch, which should you take with MtD?

TyPin.9860:

MSFone.3026:

TyPin.9860:

pulled them with Focus #4 before they could even attempt to run

Or dodge?

Edit: To elaborate: Because of the 1 sec delay on focus, pulling this off means you are timing it extremely well re. their endurance bar, in which case you should kill them, or you are just ganking people with moa who don’t know what they are doing, in which case you should kill them. The sprint thing on moa is an evade for its duration. All it takes is one dodge and that sprint and you very likely will not die. If you kill someone with moa they 9/10 times they were going to die anyway.

Then all Necromancers I met so far seemed not aware of that. Because they all fell for that… However, I don’t use Moa that often… so maybe it was just a lucky streak.

Read my post above: It’s because most Necros who use lich expect and want to be able to use it without any planning or timing as an iWin button. They hit Lich and expect to rule non-stop for a 20 sec heavy metal attack-skill mashing session. You moa them and because they hit their “I don’t need to pay attention to anything because I am god mode” button they don’t react properly. Just a small dose of awareness and strategic planning in the use of Lich makes the whole moa thing like any other strategic choice in the game.

That’s why these stupid transform abilities are horrible for the game anyways. Hit this button and go god mode for 20 sec, it’s terrible for skillful strategic play. For anyone familiar with WoW, this is like the hunters “the beast within,” commonly known as “beast of iwin”, where the hunter gets a huge dmg increase and goes immune to all cc. Such skills are almost universally derided as skill-less crap abilities, and thank goodness Anet, via luck or planning, at least has some counter ability.

StickerHappy.8052:

SPNKr.6208:

I’m sorry, I still don’t see why it matters that the target is transformed. Is it because you think the elite skill is negated? The same applies to everyone else. Any class can use whatever elite skill he wants; in the end if I moa him he’s still a moa. What stops elite skills from being negated anyway? If I put down by 180s time warp the enemy can just run out of the area and it’s useless, since according to you it’s likewise okay to run away from a lich. Should time warp apply immobilise then? A thief guild’s summons can be killed immediately if my team drops some AoEs, should they be invulnerable then?

As I said before, if what you suggest becomes a thing, transformations will counter moa. Unless you think it’s a good idea to let the lich attack my teammates for 20s then moa him afterwards.

I also don’t understand why you bring up lich countering moa now. It doesn’t. Isn’t that the point? It’s good at doing other things.

Think of it this way, 1v1 on a node, You are playing a necro and the mesmer has Moa, What is the reason for popping lich in that fight where the mesmer can just cancel it? So what is the point in using lich? Nothing right?

it makes you kinda think would you still slot it..

This right here is the whole point: Yes, if a necro is stupid enough to pop his elite right in front of the friggin mesmer then yes, he should get turned into a big stupid bird. If I were a necro and I had my super iWin button and wanted to press it, I might pause first to see if it was a good time, like, for example was there a mesmer nearby. It’s called being aware and timing your abilities. I see necros do this stupidity all the time, they see a team fight and run in as a lich. It’s so clear what is going on: They see a team fight, lich is off cd, queue up metallica and hit the button. They don’t check what’s going on, the metal music is too loud and they just want to mash that attack skill.

This is life for a mesmer: Where is the thief? You need to be aware of where the other class is that can counter you. At least for necros its just one skill.

Here are some not-so-pro tips: Maybe check if there is a mesmer present before hitting Lich. If there is one, maybe watch the mesmer and wait until he is under pressure and unlikely to be able to worry about moaing you. Or, since you are so huge on “coordinated” teams, call out that you want to Lich and ask someone to pressure the mes.

It’s really simple, classes have counters, skills have counter play. It is part of your job as a player to time your abilities for maximum effect.

Put another way: Moa doesn’t make Lich useless, it makes stupid and unplanned use of Lich useless.

Seriously, you are just trolling and it’s annoying. opinion =/= bias. People are presenting arguments that support their view, it’s pretty standard for a discussion where there are two sides.

Windwalker.7421:

(8s with baseline Mantra mastery)

Do you have a source on this? I don’t recall seeing this and it’s not on Dulfy.

StickerHappy.8052:

SPNKr.6208:

It’s funny how you think 20s worth of lich autoattacks can be dodged and blinded but a single moa cast can’t.

Pyro makes the best argument here. Moa turns you into a moa no matter what you are, lich or no lich, and you deal with the consequences the exact same way. Having a very strong elite skill shouldn’t grant you an exception to that. On the contrary it should make you more susceptible to it. I’m afraid I completely don’t see your logic.

How do you dodge something that you don’t see?

Another fun fact, you can just blink away from lich? Running away does not mean losing the game. While you do that, you can decap or neut other points?

Why does the ability to cast moa from stealth imply it shouldn’t work on lich? Moa is an elite that is supposed to remove someone from a fight for 10 sec. That is the whole point, it is a big cc. If you take it to a team fight that is why. Why should a necro be exempt? If they hit their iWin lich button in a team fight, they instantly became the biggest threat and hence the best use of moa. Why is it ok for classes to be exempt from our skills?

TyPin.9860:

pulled them with Focus #4 before they could even attempt to run

Or dodge?

Edit: To elaborate: Because of the 1 sec delay on focus, pulling this off means you are timing it extremely well re. their endurance bar, in which case you should kill them, or you are just ganking people with moa who don’t know what they are doing, in which case you should kill them. The sprint thing on moa is an evade for its duration. All it takes is one dodge and that sprint and you very likely will not die. If you kill someone with moa they 9/10 times they were going to die anyway.

As others have said, for roaming, unless you really enjoy having anyone with a brain just run away from you, you need to make sure you take appropriate weapons, which unfortunately aren’t the most optimal in terms of condition pressure (e.g. sword). Even then, if someone really wants to get away they probably will. This is why GS is such a good weapon for roaming, it is very hard for someone to get away from you.

Basically if you really want to go full condi as a roamer, get used to not getting to finish a lot of your fights and not being able to chase someone. Of course, it is totally sensible to give up some dmg for increased ability to chase, just be aware of the choice.

Strange that they would encourage use of our class mechanic, isn’kitten

Daniel Handler.4816:

MSFone.3026:

This thread is just horrible. This is how MMO’s die, these little things like moa on a lich that people complain about are really a key part of the spice of the game. Things slowly get dulled into blandness, all the weird annoying things that make the game unique get removed, and all the classes start to get the abilities of others.

Oh no my ability has a counter! Dude if you play mesmer at all just go make a thread asking for thieves attacks to not work on us because that class hard counters our entire class.

Lich form is a big dumb i-win button and when you press it you should have some chance of getting turned into a big dumb bird. All abilities that read “hit this and turn into a big super monster with boring abilities and high dmg!” are stupid and each should have an annoying counter.

And before anyone calls moa and I-win button, getting moa’ed gives you a free super escape. I never die when moa, ever, just turn around and hit the sprint and keep running. Congrats, you have just countered moa. moa is a cc, that’s it and the only people who die to it are clueless.

People spank it over counter play so hard in this game, and yet that one principle seemingly so important is constantly violated, ignored or desired to have another special exemption added to it.

What I read from this beyond the outburst of feelings is that skills should only be balanced against all other skills. If a skill is unnecessarily harsh for one class who cares, that class has skills that are also necessarily harsh. Moa cancels transforms, who cares, it can cancel more then that. Things can get cancelled that’s how this game works.

I’ll add my own part. I do not know of a skill in PvP that Moa can cancel that has a higher cooldown than Moa. You cannot kill enough minions with Moa so that their added CD is greater than Moa. All of these suggestions to help Lich are a nerf on Moa.

Yes, on both points.

This thread is just horrible. This is how MMO’s die, these little things like moa on a lich that people complain about are really a key part of the spice of the game. Things slowly get dulled into blandness, all the weird annoying things that make the game unique get removed, and all the classes start to get the abilities of others.

Oh no my ability has a counter! Dude if you play mesmer at all just go make a thread asking for thieves attacks to not work on us because that class hard counters our entire class.

Lich form is a big dumb i-win button and when you press it you should have some chance of getting turned into a big dumb bird. All abilities that read “hit this and turn into a big super monster with boring abilities and high dmg!” are stupid and each should have an annoying counter.

And before anyone calls moa and I-win button, getting moa’ed gives you a free super escape. I never die when moa, ever, just turn around and hit the sprint and keep running. Congrats, you have just countered moa. moa is a cc, that’s it and the only people who die to it are clueless.

People spank it over counter play so hard in this game, and yet that one principle seemingly so important is constantly violated, ignored or desired to have another special exemption added to it.

Fay.2357:

if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

Sadly this is the logical conclusion I also reached. When they threw out the blind on glamour trait they kind of got rid of the only reason for blinding befuddlement. The confusion buff should have been a minor or something and the confusion on blind, well, what pyro said.

It’s obvious thew got rid of blind on glamour and gave us wells and kind of forgot about this trait. Then late some night trying to wrap up the last skull sesh to get out mesmer traits, this thing was thrown on as a GM at the end.

“We need another GM for illusions.”
“Uhh, here these two traits are leftover, just bundle them into one and put that there.”

Yeah, confusing combatants will make sword much more awesome in a condi build. However we all know they are going to put some horrid icd on it

I don’t run condi currently, but I’ve tried and I would like to. As others have said, the damage over time play style is one I’ve always preferred in mmos, and in GW1 I liked the hex them and watch them kill themselves play style of mesmer (loved it actually, best pvp experience ever imo).

I think right now condi is still a little weak, but with new core specializations I will be running more condi (probably hybrid). I think MtD+IP is going to be absolutely awesome. Plus the dueling traits and 50% more torment dmg from illusions, it just looks so good.

I may give it a go before the traits release, just to get in shape, but playing without IP in a shatter build is a bummer.

This video was kittening awesome, well done!

Manip cd reduction trait should be baseline.

More than that, the mantra cd reduction trait should be baseline. Mantras are such a pain to charge in combat anyways I don’t see why there should be anything like a 30 sec cd, it should be 10 max.

I’ve read people say that staff is better for 1v1, yet in all the roaming/dueling videos I’ve seen of people I think really shredding it with shatter, they all play sw/t.

I myself enjoy staff more lately (playing shatter more to get sharp for core trait revamp when IP goes baseline), it feels like I have more control over situations, but of course I’m very possibly just bad with sword/torch.

I also find that when I fight shatter mesmers, the ones with staff feel harder to beat. The torch thing is kind of more predictable it seems. But again, most of the really good people I see run sw/t.

Hey, in the nicest way: Is this a joke? I feel like you played a trick on me. I mean there is that clip where you are capping ruins by yourself and you include that “fight” vs. 3 drakes. I watched for like 5 min and the only pvp was you getting downed by 3 people and running away and then hanging back in the back of a zerg. Also there is no staff, just GS and sword/x.

This makes sense if you were really, really high when you made this. Then it is actually awesome.

So, I think you trolled me, but also put a ton of work into doing it. Anyways…

Having to choose between mantras and DE is a bummer, I agree, as in WvW I tend to run x6x2x with HM. Really though, the stuff we are getting in exchange for losing the 3 charges are very good. Just one small example, have you seen the new Confounding Suggestions?

Do not be a sad panda.

Edit: Also yes, for god’s sake if you are taking HM take Mender’s with the heal mantra, you’re close to immune to conditions that way.

Darn it pyro I actually watched that 30 sec vid :-/ Thought it was an add before some informative video on slow or something :P

People do seem to be being weenies about your post. I agree that rather than drastically change our situation, the spec seems to have been a slight buff to some areas of weakness without really changing the situation, and been a large buff to what mesmer is already good at. I am fine with this, as different classes will excel at different things. But I hear what you are saying, and I kind of think that you were expecting a little much if being “dependent on our shatters” is a problem for you. They never said there were going to completely remake the class from the ground up, which is kind of the only way to address our dependence on shatters/phantasms. I hear what you are saying, but far from a “back hand compliment” I think the spec shows someone was actually trying to listen to a big part of the player base and took mesmer a little toward what it was in GW1. This mostly a pvp perspective, of course. The mesmer in HoT seems like it will be a better version of what it is now, but largely still with the same overall weaknesses/strengths in the meta.

Jurica.1742:

We do have some knights trinkets in order to bump our toughness up to 1,2k. This will allow us to take a backstab from a thief and still survive with a good amount of HP.

I’ve been 2 shot by thieves when running much more than 1200 toughness. Does the difference between ~1k and 1.2k toughness really make a difference in your opinion still (this post was 12 months old)?

I think if a thief gets the jump on you and knows what he’s doing, it’s either book it and escape or you die no matter how much toughness you have. Lately I’m almost full zerker with ~1k toughness and don’t notice any difference; a good thief gets the jump on me and I usually die, a bad thief does and I don’t.

Why are there non-mesmers in here giving their feedback on how the traits we are getting are too strong? This is dumb, isn’t it common knowledge that one way to identify a player as not knowing what they are talking about is them claiming mesmers are OP or fine as is? Nothing in this trait line is over the top, it’s crazy people are complaining about the 25% movement minor. It just allows mesmers to run something other than travelers. Given the state we are in griping about that minor is ridiculous. Or are there people who actually main mesmers complaining about that trait?

Since feedback not about the numbers was asked for (which is dumb because how the numbers play out basically determine the quality of the trait line; the whole thing could be turned to garbage by mishandling the numbers):

I think all the traits, modulo the numbers, look great except the well one looks weak and Illusionary Reversion seems close to useless.

What is Illusionary Reversion supposed to do? What build(s) is it supposed to help? Everyone seems to think this is an alternative to DE, it is not, like at all, for a simple reason: Clone generation is only an issue for shatter builds (since clone death is gone) , and you need the clones before you shatter. The problem is that clones do not live long at all, and the primary issue mesmers feel without DE is that they can’t get enough clones out in enough time to get a meaningful multi-clone shatter before the clones start getting killed. IR does not alleviate this at all. Getting some small set up for the next shatter is not the issue, that doesn’t help really. It’s like IR is this trait that helps clone production for your second shatter. So what we need to blow F2 in order to get a good F1? That is kittened.

If someone wanted to give a meaningful alternative to DE, it has to increase on demand clone production, as in it has to give mesmers an ability to produce clones in quick succession before they shatter them. This is the core issue with power shatter, which is still going to be one of the if not the most played mesmer build.

The following would not be OP as an alternative to DE: weapon skills that produce a clone produce 2. There is only one of those on your bar, and each has a cd. You could put an icd on it if you wanted. This would actually be an alternative to DE, and would allow mesmers the on demand ability to get up front clone generation.

so TL;DR: Illusionary Reversion is not in any way an alternative to DE and does very little to help shatter builds.

Ithamir.5928:

MSFone.3026:

Illusions GM also buffs shatter dmg, and flat out not just against inactive foes. I do not think chrono makes up for DE at all.

Do you mean Master of Fragmentation? All I know about it is that it “improve shatter skills”. Does it straight out improve damage? Still, even if that’s the case, 60+% damage is hard to ignore.

I believe so, if you look at the picture the numbers for MW are much bigger than what you have normally, so I’m assuming from that picture that the talent gives a flat dmg increase to MW, and does some other things we don’t know yet to other shatters.

Does anyone know if Stability prevents Slow? If not that makes this trait line that much more awesome.

Ithamir.5928:

MSFone.3026:

Well, can’t take 4 sadly. DE is mandatory, so that leaves 2. Illusions imo is still going to mandatory for a shatter build. So that leaves chrono or dom :-/

Domination can provide 60+% shatter damage while ripping boons. How can we not take it? Maybe Alacrity and Chrono traits make up for DE?

Illusions GM also buffs shatter dmg, and flat out not just against inactive foes. I do not think chrono makes up for DE at all.

Also this doesn’t actually seem like that much alacrity :-/ The increase should be like 50-100%, not 33% (i.e. 1.5 or 2 seconds per shatter).

Question: Illusionary Reversion – Gain a clone after you activate a shatter skill, does this clone participate in the shatter that summoned it? Like I have 1 clone out, activate MW, a second clone appears and also runs at target for a 2 clone MW?

If so, yes DE is no longer required. If not, sorry DE is still mandatory for any PvP build pretty much.

This is kittening rad. Dueling/Chrono/Illusions power shatter here I come.

So Time Catches Up, I’m hoping the super speed lasts until they shatter. I still wouldn’t take this over slow on interrupt (too sexy), but still a really nice trait.

Also I expect stupid nerf via icd to delayed reactions and lost time. I’ll probably still take them both though :P

But didn’t they say all the numbers are just placeholders? Isn’t all of this open for toning down?

Miku Lawrence.6329:

I wouldn’t say it’s night impossible to keep 3 phantasms up, it’s rather the low hp/high quantity of mobs that just melts our single-target damage resources. Add to that unreliability “ramp up time” and you have your low-mid tier DPS.

Truth.

Ok some people made the annoying mistake of assuming “I’m having problems in silver wastes” when I said in the OP “I’m not complaining about difficulty.” Yes I understand all pve content is very doable on a mesmer. I’m saying it is kittening annoying and clunky to do compared with other classes. PvE is not PvP, and open world PvE is not dungeons. Open world PvE is running around in general fighting groups of low-moderate HP enemies with an elite/veteran thrown in now and then. For this type of content the mesmer reward/effort ratio is just kitten . So yes, I know I can do it on a mesmer, I’m not saying it’s hard, I’m saying it’s annoying, un-enjoyable and not worth the effort.

I like the effort I have to put in to play well in PvP because the reward is great. Having to do that over and over again for the crappy reward of killing 1/100 low HP mobs is just a kitten experience, imo.

Edit: Yes Chrono may alleviate this, just have to wait and see.

Windwalker.7421:

MSFone.3026:

Edit: Also, I really don’t think MI is a reasonable argument here. You shouldn’t have to take a utility to make your main class mechanic workable.

Oh come on now! No one is going to care about the principle behind how something “should” work, that being in and of itself highly subjective anyway, but they will only care about what works best.

How will Power Shatter with Chrono instead of Dueling work?

F5 -> MB + MI -> F1 + F2 -> F5 -> MB + MI -> F1 + F2

That’s a double 3-Clone MW plus 3-Clone CoF combo, within a very very short duration thanks to Chronomancy. No need for DE, keeping you free to take Dom & Ill for max damage on those MWs. (If doing this in a 1v1, you’d also have 10 stacks of Might up for the second combo, 20 stacks after the second one…nice BF inc! ;-) )

Any further questions on Power-Shatter and Chrono? ;-)

This is all well and good theory crafting, but a build survives not on some once a minute semi-gimmick, but on being reliably able to do what it is supposed to. Yes the above would be neat, assuming that all works perfect. But things don’t work perfect most of the time, and now that you’ve blown your load, what do you do for the next minute?

Lot’s of builds can be theory crafted to do amazing things by blowing a bunch of skills at once. I mean what you wrote is not comparable to current power shatter at all: DE is always there and always works, no cd. Above you have a scenario where you blow a 60 sec cd (F5) and a ~40 sec cd utility (can’t remember exact cd on MI). One of the reasons power shatter works is that the longest cd it relies on for dmg is 12 sec (MW).

And again, a build relying on MI to do a reasonable attack is a really weak build. Maybe I’m dense; what would your attacks look like without MI?

I know this is speculation, I’m just saying that having clones spawn after you shatter is pretty different than before. With DE, you spawn one clone with weapon and one clone with dodge (eg. GS 2 and dodge), for a two clone shatter. This is really different from one clone, shatter, then another clone because whatever shatter you used is on cd, and that clone that just appeared is not going to survive until that shatter comes back off cd.

So the chrono thing really does not replace DE functionally for power shatters at all imo.

As said in title, maybe this isn’t true for condi shatter or support or other builds.

But as also pointed out, maybe that is fine. You want to play power shatter you take Dueling, it’s just part of the build. There is only a problem if this is true for essentially all real pvp builds, which is the point of the discussion.

Of all the ideas for an alternative to DE, I think have clones spawn after a shatter is one of the…least optimal. You could have some mechanic with an icd where clone skills produce two clones, for example. If every 5 seconds you could spawn two clones with a weapon skill, that really would compete with DE.

Edit: Also, I really don’t think MI is a reasonable argument here. You shouldn’t have to take a utility to make your main class mechanic workable.

Sebrent.3625:

Two concerns I have with the Chrono-Phantasm trait that resummons the phantasm when you shatter them…

First, I noticed this from the video:

• After being shattered and resummoned, the phantasms are now in shatter (see: melee) range of the target … where they will quite likely be killed; especially in PvE.

Second, this may just be wording and the Phantasms could just have an extra life regardless of a shatter or something else ending it … but if it isn’t a wording issue and the extra life is only on-shatter:

• A phantasm has to survive running into melee range with its target in order to shatter … if it dies on the way, it could possibly not benefit from the extra life since it didn’t get to shatter.

Also, what if when you shatter a phantasm, the shatter kills the target. Does the phantasm respawn on a new target if one is available, or is the trait just wasted if you use your shatter as a killing blow, which we often do and should do.

I played GW1 and came to GW2, also with mmo experience. I only played mesmer in GW1 and I only played mesmer in GW2. Unless you are a serious noob to gaming in general or are mentally impaired, mesmer is a great class to play and learn the game on (in pvp, which I assume you are talking about).

Edit: Re. thieves, yes in the ecosystem of PvP you are the food for thieves. On the flip side there are many classes that you will eat just as easily as thieves eat you. Every class/build has some counter in this game, some have harder counters than others. Mesmer happen to have an extremely hard counter in thieves. But it’s ok, just live with it and don’t expect to have some god mode build that can beat everything you encounter and you will still have a great time.

I’m basically a PvP’er, it’s the reason I play GW2. However it would be nice to also enjoy some PvE, and in a good mmo the two kind of compliment each other, the PvE being a sort of nice break that adds a little spice to your character. I really do enjoy some good PvE if it is there.

I also enjoyed leveling my mesmer, it was fun to learn the class and get used to the game.

Lately I decided to go check out Silverwastes for a nice PvE break from PvP.

Unfortunately, after learning the game and getting pretty solid on my mesmer (I’m at least at an average level of skill in PvP), most of the end game PvE content is just a nightmare. I’m not talking dungeons, I’m talking living story, silver wastes, open world etc.

It’s like the mechanics of the class are just incompatible with a smooth open world PvE experience. Say I want to take on a group of enemies. Well I summon my phantasm on one, and when it dies the phantasm explodes and I have to wait for it’s cd to come back to use it on another mob. Phantasms make up a big part of our dmg, and they are just absolutely so designed as a single target mechanic it’s just horrible for open world PvE.

It’s an un-smooth, clunky and unenjoyable experience for me. Compare to PvP, where downing someone on a mesmer is the smoothest most satisfying experience I have ever had in an mmo. Everything works against a single target pretty darn well, and it makes for a greatly enjoyable gaming experience.

This is also why in PvE, fighting veterans or elites is pretty fun, they take a long time to kill and so it doesn’t feel like I’m constantly ramping up. I really enjoy fighting elites and veterans when I encounter them in the open world (this is also why I think dungeons are ok on a mesmer).

I think that they really need to do some serious spell splits between pvp and pve for mesmers. One huge improvement would be persistent phantasms in pve (not WvW), meaning that phantasms behave like ranger pets and do not explode when the initial target dies. Instead, the phantasm should persist and switch to the next target. The constant ramp up time of re-summoning phantasms all the time in open world PvE is just the worst.

Suggestion: Make phantasms persistent in PvE (not WvW), in that once summoned they persist as pets until shattered.

I’m not complaining about difficulty. I’m saying that the experience is not smooth and not enjoyable. The mesmer is basically fundamentally not designed to properly go through an area downing lots of moderate difficulty enemies, which of course makes up the majority of the open world. It’s a shame to me that I can’t go explore the world on my mesmer without getting quickly frustrated by the rough and clunky experience.

Lately I resorted to an IE condi build, where I just spam staff clones :-/ It is sadly the most effective build for killing groups of enemies in open world PvE.

Edit: I think the chronomancer traits should help this a lot, IF, when the shatter kills a target the phantasms resummon on a new target.

As many have, I gave power shatter a go without DE, just to see how it felt. And, of course, it was abysmal. Thinking about the new chrono trait whereby shattering a clone produces another, I don’t think this will really make up for DE in power shatter. DE gives up front clone generation; you need clones up front, not 1 then another after your MW is already blown.

Thus the question: Is DE still mandatory for mesmers in sPvP? For what builds do you guys think it will be?

I think DE will still be a must for power shatter.

Because of the way MtD works with every shatter, maybe this chrono trait will be able to replace DE for that build (though the two dueling minors are so good for condi application most MtD players will still take Dueling it seems to me).

Right now, I think the devs still left us with the situation of mandatory Dueling in PvP. Everything else looks great, however I think this particular situation is still lame (mandatory trait).

Edit: I should say, I think DE is still mandatory for mesmers in PvP who want to primarily deal damage. I’d guess there are some support builds that will be possible that won’t need Dueling.

MailMail.6534:

Like I said, MtD Shatter is about to be the best shatter build in our tool belt with all the crazy condition applications. Unlike power shatter, each shatter is just as potent as the next (to an extent).

Doesn’t this depend a little bit on how the condi cleanse capabilities of other classes are buffed/nerfed?

There is already a whole other thread debating this, which we probably don’t want to start here, but since that is probably going to happen anyways: What specifically in the new traits relieves the problems MtD has right now? Is it just more shatters? If everyone has more cleanses it will still suffer the issues it does now. By the same token, power shatter will also benefit from increased shatter rate and the whole argument from the other thread seems to still apply.

Fay.2357:

MSFone.3026:

First, the wiki pages says that “for every 3 seconds chilled, only 1 second of cooldown will have expired” (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled). If this is wrong then everything that follows is irrelevant.

This is wrong, I tested it myself last night.

For 9 seconds real time, a chilled skill recharged for 6 seconds of time.

I’ll just go ahead and update the wiki actually.

Edit: You’re still right about multiplicative vs additive calculations though. However, additive is NOT a % rate, it’s flat. If they want to use % on tooltips, then they need to use it properly.

Even if they calculated it as -.33 seconds per second, and +.33 seconds per second, which would be the additive way of doing it…alacrity is not the rate reversal of chill, it’s simply a flat counter rate.

They just need to publish what the equations are. Trying to parse English descriptions of mathematical equations, which almost by necessity are always cumbersome and confusing, is a waste of time.

I think you may be getting confused by the wording, or possibly the wording is mixed up. It isn’t clear whether things are coded multiplicatively as you have assumed.

First, the wiki pages says that “for every 3 seconds chilled, only 1 second of cooldown will have expired” (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled). If this is wrong then everything that follows is irrelevant.

If the above is true, this implies skill recharge modifiers are applied additively, for example according to something like the following:

The base rate of recharge is 1 (1 second per 1 second). The actual rate of recharge is given by (1+M), where M is the modifier. Now assuming no chill or alacrity, M=0. Based on the above, I think it’s safe to assume that chill applies -.66 additively to M as follows, if we let MC be the modifier under the effects of chill:

(1+MC)=1-.66=.33, or 1/3. This would match the information on the wiki, giving us 3 seconds under chill to achieve 1 second of recharge.

If the above is true, then the “+66%” language simply means MA, the modifier for alacrity, is .66 and is applied additively as above:

(1+MA)=1+.66=1.66 or 5/3. This means that for every 3 seconds of real time you get 5 seconds of recharge. Moreover if things are coded additively like this, then the chill and alacrity modifiers would be the “opposite” of each other: Under the effects of both your recharge would look like

(1+MC+MA)=1-.66+.66=1.

So, I don’t think it’s clear that there is an error unless you can see exactly how these modifiers are coded and applied (multiplicatively as you have assumed, or additively as above). English is going to be imprecise, and really the only precise statement possible is to just show the equations in the code (would be neat if they would just do that).

Does Alacrity affect internal cool downs on traits, e.g., on Confounding Suggestions or Furious Interruption?

With shattering granting alacrity, and combined with the recreating illusions on shatter, is anyone thinking that Dom/Chron/Illusions would be a fun shatter build? The 15% reduced shatter cd and 20% reduced summons cd combined with the above would seem to make actually playing without DE possible. You also have two GM’s that buff shatter dmg, one in Dom and one in illusions for potentially gigantic mind wracks, so again with IP baseline you may really not need DE anymore. Of course you could just go Dom/Dueling/Chron, but just the idea of being freed from DE makes the above enticing to me.

Maybe this got answered, but after some searching I can’t find an answer: Does anyone know if f5 will bring you back from down state? They mentioned you could use f5 to avoid “killing blows” I think. So, suppose you activate f5 then become downed, will f5 bring you back when it ends?

Dondagora.9645:

MSFone.3026:

But we will have blinding dissipation which is blind on every shatter with no cd. That is a lot of blind. With no icd on BB wouldn’t that be pretty crazy, 3 stacks of confusion per clone per shatter (assuming illusions minor)?

Exact wording is blind around yourself, meaning it’s likely not per illusion, but per skill. Add this to Torch and Signet of Midnight, we have 6 skills that can’t really be spammed, unless you count Chaos Field, then 8 non-spammable sources across 2 weapons and an unused signet, 2 RNG. We aren’t like necro or thief, who have pulsing blind, so I think no ICD should be fine.

Oohhh, ok then if it is only around you and not every clone then the icd is whack. Wow that makes it a lot less awesome.

But we will have blinding dissipation which is blind on every shatter with no cd. That is a lot of blind. With no icd on BB wouldn’t that be pretty crazy, 3 stacks of confusion per clone per shatter (assuming illusions minor)?

Trait currently shown: 2 stacks confusion on blind, 5 sec icd, +33% confusion duration.

At first the icd seemed stupid to me, and I thought for example that 1 stack confusion per blind with no icd would be better. However combined with blind on shatter in dom, which has no icd, and the illusions minor, you would be getting 2 stacks of confusion on each shatter, on top of regular effect, so F2 would hit for 3 stacks of confusion.

Would this be OP?

I’m thinking possibly, when combined with sum of all fears (torment per 5 stacks confusion applied), but possibly not depending on how other classes shape up.

I think if the 5 sec cd stays, it could go up to 3 stacks per blind without it being OP. This would take it out of the questionable range and put it up to a solid GM on par with MtD.

Even as is, I think I would still take it. With confusion on crits and on shatter, the + 33% duration is good and the extra 2 stacks of confusion on one shatter attack every 5 sec (which is fine when you think about how often you go in for a big shatter attack) is a nice bonus.

So I know many have said there should be no icd, I could see how this is actually a balanced implementation of it when taken with everything else.

Thoughts?

Miku Lawrence.6329:

For newcommers, regarding new trait system (aviable before HoT) :

Did they give any idea as to how far in advance of HoT or when we can expect this new trait system to go live in game?

My only comment on clone death being gone is that it makes us a little more susceptible to aoe spammers. Clone death was a way to punish those people. Now, not only are they dealing dmg, but they are effectively countering our dmg when they cleave our clones, thus reducing shatter dmg. Not the end of the world, I’m def. not crying, but to me it does seem like they just removed them without thinking fully of their original purpose (before blackwater came to be).

I honestly don’t see why clones should be able to be killed by aoe to begin with. You can easily dodge the clones running at you, so there is counter play even if they can’t be aoe’d.

Now myself personally, I don’t super care because I just deal with it currently without any clone death traits, and with interrupts and timing you can still deal with aoe spamming guards etc. I just think in principle it is stupid that a class can aoe our clones and nerf our dmg while damaging us.