Guild Wars 2

Oh ok! I always felt more comfortable with torch, but the pistol trait in combination with S. Domination, sigil of paralyzation and 30%+ dmg Mind Wrack on non skill-users made for some awfully funny bursts tonight.

And due to being able to have sustain with the signets trait, I don’t feel that the stealth on torch is top as necessary for my playstyle. I’ll give the classic build a go sometime or maybe you can just report back here with more of your findings!

Shatter definitely feels easier to me. I didn’t feel the vigor nerf, but there’s definitely ways to supplement survivability. Hello signets. I haven’t found Shattered Concentration a must-have tonight thus far on my power shatter build.

I just want to know the rationale as to why MTD was the most pressing concern above all other builds. Can we see some numbers and some actual logic from the devs?

+1

Lyssa is punishing us.

:(

Well at least I’ve been playing with it for the last two hours, and was able to win 90% of my matches. I guess I’ll go back to my signets build! Maim no more!

Our access to condition clears are TEN TIMES better than before. We always had such access, but it was hard to actually take those options without taking a huge loss in another place. You’re probably talking about Mender’s Purity which is now a minor trait when you take the Inspiration tree. Other ways our condition clearing has been boosted:

• Being able to take Restorative Illusions if you go into Inspiration, means you have a lot of ways already to take condition clears without taking a utility spot.
• Mantras now start ticking their CDs as soon as you charge them, making them all a lot easier to use now. i.e. Mantra of Resolve.
• Nullfield is on a 32s CD now, making it easier to take.
• Easier to trait for signets to clear conditions.
• Easier to trait for Manipulation CDs, making Arcane Thievery more palatable.

StickerHappy.8052:

So slow does not stack? TW just refreshes the slow.

Even untraited, having Slow pulsing on a point for 10s combined with a single AOE interrupt has landed me most team fights. This goes for even ones where it was lopsided against my team. So far, it’s definitely ahead of Mass Invis in terms of team utility.

Menaka.5092:

MailMail.6534:

The slow on TW is literally eating people alive. Just a psa for you peeps.

Reaction of my guardian friend to a TW test in PVP “WTF was that?! I couldn’t cast my skills!” :°D

I literally haven’t seen a Mesmer use it outside of myself today.

I think it’s going to be the new go-to elite tbh. S. Humility if you’re running signets.

The slow on TW is literally eating people alive. Just a psa for you peeps.

Nothing says vitriol like a good fight within the Mesmer forum community!

I guess I was so disgusted with the rumors that I’ve just been focused on my signet build, and now I have very little interest in trying Maim right now. haha

I’d like to agree with your sentiments, Sebrent, but what was alleged ended up being pretty accurate considering the sources were correct about Confusing Combatants being dropped. No “hard evidence” was necessary. The statements that were made came from the same source and was pretty accurate.

I fully believe they’ve been working on this stuff up until the last minute. The proof is in the pudding with the changes they’ve already made…

Currently gathering footage. I’ve been using Cleric’s instead of Soldier’s. I’m rekting. Hopefully my luck doesn’t suddenly change. The aoe distortions are mitigating so much damage it’s insane.

Also, I’m trying to get the timing correct, but I’m pretty sure Healing Prism is proccing ALOT.

The OP mentioned both signets and the trait which is what I’m responding to. There’s a lot of uptime on aoe distortion in signet builds that also take the gm trait in Inspiration. That’s all I’ve been using since this morning, and I’ve only lost maybe 2 or 3 matches.

Fay.2357:

It shouldn’t be on every phantasm cast; that trait has a substantial cooldown.

By substantial, he means every 24s for boon sharing and every 5seconds for the distortion.

ummmm hmmm!! My signet support build is working out amazingly well right now in solo q.

Curunen.8729:

skcamow.3527:

Patch just hit – still 2 stacks per shatter. Good, hopefully it stays that way for the time being and they can evaluate. Also confusing combatants change to fury is real (EDIT: now called Master Fencer).

THANK GOD! :o

I don’t care that confusing combatants was changed, but praise the six that they left MtD alone!

Blessed is those who pray to Lyssa.

tobascodagama.2961:

skcamow.3527:

Patch just hit – still 2 stacks per shatter. Good, hopefully it stays that way for the time being and they can evaluate. Also confusing combatants change to fury is real.

Oh, good. So they didn’t do the really stupid thing, but they still did the kind of disappointing thing.

At least the fury trait has somewhat of a decent application for PvE builds and other builds that might want to rely less on precision in exchange for more ferocity. But isn’t that what the sword trait is for…?

SIGH

I’ve always toyed around with a troll-y glamour rezbot build using PU. I haven’t really put much effort into glamours moving forward as I’m unsure how worthwhile Temporal Enchantment would be in a pvp setting. That being said, here’s how that rez bot build would look after today:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R3lZ;1VPVz027JVV71;9;4WUV;0256257048;428lFZ;1Uwl6Uwl69q

eta – Obviously, this build really shines while rezzing teammates. It used to be really good, because you’d have the blind on glamour, the blind from a Prestige (block from PU), the reflects from Medic’s Feedback, then an AOE chaos armor. It’s weird making a build based around your enemies going into downstate in the first place, but hey, if Warriors can do it, why not us too?! haha

It would be great if they did miscellaneous updates to the Lore around Tyria. I love the Consortium being like this sub-villainous entity to our heroes.

Exploring more lore revolving around Kessex Hills would be a start. Maybe they’ll surprise us with some more shady dealings involved with the LA rebuilding and the connection with Consortium. I honestly can’t believe Kiel would do business with them… Evon would have financed the rebuilding by himself.

This sounds like a lot of fun! Thanks for doing this.

I’m really excited to see Rytlock’s role in the story this upcoming season!

Well this thread quickly devolved into the psychoanalysis of someone who obviously has destructive tendencies.

When I’m solo and it seems like Lyssa is punishing me, I find friends. To me, it never made sense why they separated in the first place, but whenever I go into a match with 2 or more teammates, I always have a 70% success rate on average.

When facing experienced players, clones are less threatening. That being said, do NOT underestimate how painstakingly frustrating it is for low-tier (and even lower mid-tier) players at times to face a Mesmer’s clone mechanics.

Even in my coordinated teams, I always put Mesmer at a lower target priority (squishy Necros/Rangers first please!). The effort it takes tabbing to re-find the Mesmer wastes a few seconds, and in pvp, sometimes a few seconds is all it takes to turn the tide of a fight!!

Well, I was super excited to test out a new and improved condi shatter build, but I think my first priority of testing will be a tanky-ish build that I’ve been toying with for a while now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Hermetic-Inscriptions-PvP-Build-Theory/first#post5154708

I like to still have somewhat of an offensive impact on my Mesmer builds, but you can go full on tank with a settlers/clerics amulet instead of soldier’s.

I think people are just justifiably outraged, because once again, the Devs like to take 1 step forward and 10 back with the Mesmer community. Anger is bound to be misdirected when discussing such issues…

Windwalker.7421:

fluxit.8247:

This thread is about the mesmer community’s worries about our ability to stack conditions after the mtd nerf. This streamer used a less than optimal build against Koroshi, a very well known roaming streamer, and was able to stack enough conditions on him to down him a couple of times.

Setting aside that that is a poster child definition of “knee jerk” balancing, due to a ludicrously small sample size that you’re basing the adjustment on…

Let’s just assume you’re right. So instead of achieving balance here via careful tweaking of new abilities, we take a chainsaw to a trait that has never been deemed viable before? A 50% nerf is not exactly a “small and careful adjustment” it can easily end up making that trait completely worthless. (And in the opinion of many that have actually played with MtD for a while, it will do exactly that.)

If something that clearly wasn’t overpowered before, in fact quite the opposite, how then does it make sense to target this trait, rather than the many other new variables in the equation? I’ll tell you why! Because it’s an easy target for lazy people who really don’t care how it works out in the end. Anyone else would have thought up a different, more careful approach, than to whack something into oblivion with a giant nerf-bat.

Again, the most entertaining part is that this comes after the removal of the +50% damage bonus to Torment damage on moving targets for traited Scepter! lol! That kinda reminds me of the title of a new GM trait in Illusions.

A single stack of Torment per shatter is just plain bad as long as CoF remains on double the CD as MW. It literally kills the concept of a Condition Shatter build in one fell swoop. (Especially considering how bad CoF is compared to MW.)

Oh I’m certain we’ll still have single target Condition builds that will rock other classes pants off in 1v1…but so what? We’ve always had this with PU/Condie builds. The problem is that our ability to pump out viable AoE condition damage to even remotely compete with Power-Shatter, is gone. Added to that, Power Shatter has gained a lot of survivability, making the entire reason to go Condie Shatter much less desireable than before already. Now, with lacking AoE damage output, there really isn’t much of a reason to go for Conditions on a Mesmer, with the same old exception as before to solo roam and 1v1.

So I guess they balance Mesmers around 1v1 performance, but not anyone else. Got it!

+1

Stop being so right. I am saddened. I’ve been a champion of the MTD playstyle since they buffed it to its current non-competitive state. This change combined with the erasure of Confusing Combatants totally guts what bit of viability MTD already had. And this is all happening days before it’s even released to the public?! What in the actual kitten?!

idgi

Quadox.7834:

Velimere.7685:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Ehrm… the 3rd minor trait in dueling isn’t confusing combatants anymore but a trait that grants 5s of fury whenever we hit a target with less than 75% hp. (some icd) does someone know all changes we didn’t know yet? Did any of the streamers go through all of these?

There are no words.

This change is good in my opinion. Duelling is about crits and evades, not conditions. Fury is also something shatter mesmer and interrupt mes can make use of.
However, the MtD change is bad bad bad for condi mesmer.

Duelist’s Discipline, Sharper Images and Mistrust say hello.

I can’t even get through the entire first page of this thread without being sorely disappointed in the devs. It’s just so insulting that they are quick to “hot-fix” nerfs to Mesmer skills while it takes them half a year to shave a percentage off of Warrior’s healing signet.

So basically, my condition shatter build is going to go from being currently subpar to completely unviable??? Wow. And I’m not even touching on the minor gm trait in Dueling. I hope that isn’t true…

edited to add: I try to support the devs and stick up for them whenever it’s possible, but I’m just saddened and disappointed by these knee-jerk changes.

Us Mesmers complain all the time what are you talking about?! We’re a very dedicated bunch, because we’re passionate about our class. I think you see less complaints because some of us on here have communicated properly that what we’re getting on Tuesday is really good for our class overall.

At the end of the day, we don’t know exactly how things will shake out in relation to other classes until the patch hits. That being said, there’s always things to complain about.

I’m glad Mimic doesn’t effect elites or heals. That would be simply outrageous.

I’m looking forward most to double Blinks and Arcane Thefts. Other utilities that would have some interesting play with Mimic:

• Nullfield doubling it’s boon stripping capabilities and condition clearing.
• S. Inspiration giving a long uptime of boons to our allies.
• S. Domination dominating an enemy for 6 seconds… and that’s if you aren’t running sigil of paralyzation like I sometimes do with pistol.

StickerHappy.8052:

Dondagora.9645:

Stacks are something else, but more so it gives us some capability to tag a lot of players and screw up some skill-spammers. Plus, I really want to call myself an Inept Mesmer. Just has a nice ring to it, y’know?

Yes fair points, but the thing is, how does 2 stacks punish skill spammers? You could argue we have a lot of confusion sources now but how many are aoe? Shatters (if you trait in that line) and Mistrust, Everything else is Single target (not sure how many) scepter 3 is aoe but people need to be in a line.

Well first of all, if you’re traiting for Ineptitude, you are also getting confusion on shatter and confusion duration increase. These are minor traits. Mistrust only needs you to interrupt one person in a zerge to dump confusion on everyone. And if you interrupt more than one person at the same time in that AOE, that’s 4 stacks… If you’re building around confusion, that’s easy to do now… http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R;4k2l31K7BVV71;9;4UTW;0256237156;43t0GT;1bUytbUyt;0Fj5-DOG5;1293949596979M

Thank GOD perplexity isn’t in PvP.

Oh definitely. I, along with yourself, are pretty known to main condition shatter. Based on the thread “How Will Your Build Change” thread, we approach condition shatter differently, but the main difference is that I’ll be using Ineptitude instead of Malicious Sorcery. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/How-Will-YOUR-Build-Change/first#post5175071

I don’t think there’s any ICD on the confusion. That’s why it’s only 1 stack for 4 seconds. I think the ICD is on the block/evasion causing blind. Blurred Frenzy, Blinding Dissipation, Sword4, Scepter2, Aegis and dodging.

glock.6590:

I never said I wanted to become a better player but wanted to play a fair game where im not vs 3-5 man try hard premade on voice comm while solo Qing.

Again, I’m sorry to take up for the developers, but there have been many times where people have complained about circumstances, and when a dev pulls up their data, their argument falls a part. I’m sorry if I’m a bit jaded towards people who complain so much on the forums.

glock.6590:

If I wanted a serious challenge I wouldnt be playing this game in the first place.

I think you’re confusing PvE with PvP. If you want an easy pvp game, Guild Wars 2 isn’t for you period…

glock.6590:

I knew people would bring this up… So pls stop the stupid argument about ‘’oh I like the challenge when the odds are against me’’. This is bullkitten no offense. Why the odds should be against me when I payed the same amount of money as everybody else to play the game?

Offense taken, because this doesn’t relate to anything I said. On the contrary, when I’m solo-ing, I don’t like the odds being stacked against me which is why I go find teammates. This is what I said in my first reply. I like the incentive it gives, because it pushes players to play the game how MMOs are intended to be played: with a team of friends.

I can’t say I’ve shared the horrendous solo-ing experiences you have. You seem really upset. When I become a bit frustrated with my solo experience, I simply find a few friends and I start rekting.

Yamsandjams.3267:

MailMail.6534:

All of those “on heal” (10s icd) runes should get a lot more attractive for Mesmers taking advantage of this trait.

Yep, I might swap back to my Lyssa runes now, or explore some of the other options like adventurer rune or even centaur runes.

tbh, I completely forgot Lyssa runes were a thing. How appropriate to run such a rune in the Chaos tree now!! I’m going to have to look at all the runes tied to heal usage.

The fact that the system allegedly stacks odds against solo players actually gives me an incentive to play in teams more often than not. Even when I wasn’t apart of a fantastic pvp guild, I would always try to grab a friend or two to play with me which helped make me a better pvper in general and made the game more fun.

I don’t think the solo experience should be absolutely terrible in the game, but I’m also happy that gw2 makes it obvious the exploring content (in all 3 game modes) with friends will make the gaming experience that much better.

I understand your frustration and for this reason only:

• Most condition builds that would take Chaotic Transference usually run Staff, hence, putting more importance on the Staff reduction trait.

Honestly, I think traits like that should be minors as they are innately tree-defining and lack a lot of flavor in general. I honestly don’t think Mesmer needs this trait at all… My suggestion:

• Change Chaotic Transference to work similarly to the engineer’s Alchemy minor trait, Transmute i.e. X% chance to turn incoming conditions into boons.

I know you guys hate RNG, but let’s just admit that the chaos tree is supposed to be somewhat chaotic in nature. I mean, Lyssa is our patron goddess for crying out loud! I would definitely like a trait like this which could arguably be better than the engi trait with no icd a bit of luck. It would also obviously tie in great with this tree being heavily tied to boon generation.

I disagree with your suggestion to move BD into master tier. It should definitely be separate from CI, as both of those traits are build-defining traits.

I forgot to add this idea: maybe Temporal Enchantment could add a pulsing heal onto all glamours. I’m not good with balancing numbers, but having a pulsing heal for 7s inside of a Nullfield would be nice and align with what Inspiration is all about.

At least this way, every glamour would have different strengths depending on the situation. Again, I think they should have just made it like Master of Fragmentation…

Does anyone know if the magic find boosters from other guild upgrades effect pvp boxes? /noob

If not, then we should definitely have a pvp magic booster.

Curunen.8729:

Really looking forward to using this with the heal, especially on a 12s cooldown.

All of those “on heal” (10s icd) runes should get a lot more attractive for Mesmers taking advantage of this trait.

All of our elites got buffed, which will make things more interesting than everyone using Moa in competitive play and everyone else running Mass Invis in unorganized play. I think we’ll see all elites get some use throughout pvp.

In terms of S. Humility, I love it. The passive is not to be underrated. The fact that it can be traited for awesome additional buffs like distortion and condition clear is also awesome, but that trait has some stiff competition. Depends on the build.

There’s going to be A LOT of build testing, so I’m sure I’ll get around to using it at some point. It looks fantastic.

Yamsandjams.3267:

I, personally, am looking forward to making a full mirror build. Will probably be gimmicky and suck, but I have fun with that kind of stuff.

psssssssh!!! There’s nothing gimmicky about this build! <_<

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Rg-FF;0kUF1197oV-71;9;4TUS;0058236056;4SNG6T;16Rk06Rk0_0l

I actually think they’ve went down an extremely fantastic path in terms of our manipulation utilities. Arcane Thievery at 36s is a great baseline (actually I forget whether it’s been decreased or not, but 36s is good for this skill), and I’m also very happy with Mimic in its current state.

eta – there is a bit of a conflict with Mass Invis and the reflecting trait. You’re protected while stealthed, but the trade off for that protection is being revealed. I don’t know. I don’t mind it too much. AOE attacks are supposed to counter stealth, so I’m not too offended here.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Should have just been first in last out: with a change to boon/condi displays that show the correct order that they’re in so players can make informed decisions.

That way skillful play shows up in the form of cover boons and conditions.

+1

But it is worth saying that conditions are simply too prevalent, especially when almost every AA has condis on them.

Vague Memory.2817:

The Chronomancer passive speed increase is obviously very nice, but it’s tied to a trait line. Taking into account the new specialization system it will be far more difficult to swap out on the fly than say a signet would. Also HoT isn’t getting released any time soon.

Well luckily for you, the signet is a pretty darn good option considering all the other options we have in conjunction.

I don’t think 50% uptime is horrible as a passive that you can share. Other things you might want to consider:

• Pack/Centaur/Air runes
• Other runes that I don’t know about because I’m a pvper?
• Focus Curtain
• Boon duration food
• Engi perma speed was just nerfed.
• Chrono has 25%+ movement speed grandfathered in. This doesn’t even include the totally powerful additional effect of reducing conditions that effect your speed.
• If you’re not in combat, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of ways to get 100% uptime? Again, I don’t wvw, so I’m unsure.
• If you are in combat, we have ample ways to chase. Better access to torment, cripple, 1200 blink (don’t forget mimic for the 2400 distance blink!) and this doesn’t even include your own sources of swiftness.

I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but this is a pretty legit move on Anet all things considered from my POV.

skcamow.3527:

This trait is good, no doubt, and has its specific uses especially in wvw with utilities like veil and portal. In pvp a single time warp with this trait will pretty much guarantee a team fight win. Even so, its not a GM tier as it currently stands IMO. And cho, super speed is just an amped up swiftness, nothing to do with quickness.

Well in that case, I really can’t see any use for SS on Feedback or Nullfield… The trait remains subpar overall imho. Just use my idea and call it a day, Anet.

My thoughts:

• Does super speed effect stomps/rezzes a la quickness?! If so, it’s great on Feedback/Nullfield for conquest in that it helps tremendously for stomps (prevents fear/chill). If not, I fail to really see how SS is useful in either of these
• In terms of Medic’s Feedback, the Resistance is effective! What’s one of the first reactions you have when you down an enemy? If you’re not in range of a stomp, you pour condis on him such as bleed/poison in order to bleed him out. Traited Medic’s Feedback gives you 3s of unmitigated fast rezzing! Also, if you need help rezzing, the SS given to allies will ensure they get right on top of you quickly!
• I don’t wvw, but definitely see the SS/R being excellent for poral/Veil. This gm would be almost a must if using one or both of these two for wvw groups right? Resistance combined with SS is not to be underrated here.

The Resistance does add another layer of support for glamours. My suggestion was always to add a high up-time of Resistance onto “Alls Well That Ends Well” instead of encroaching on Null Field’s condition removal… I think they could have done something better that enhanced each glamour in a different way according to how it’s best used a la Master of Fragmentation:

• Null Field: Remove 2 conditions per pulse, strip 2 boons from enemies. 14 conditions and 14 boons? Absolutely!
• Feedback: All projectile finishers are combo 100% of the time (17 skills effected). More niche uses, but could definitely rack up the confusion very quickly with some of these skills.
• Portal: Grants 4 seconds of Resistance. Usually the problem with portal is your enemy knows you’re coming at some point so they lay condis down waiting for you. This is especially the case against smart engineers and necros…
• Veil: Grants 4 seconds of Super Speed. This speaks for itself and its use.

Great work on this thread!!!

Signets are simply magical inscriptions on a ring of sorts. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to me that a magically enhanced stone could also cause manipulations in physics. Our other signets do similar things. Stunning, blinding, transferring etc all while having positive passive effects.

Specifically, the passive effect decreasing control effects makes sense for the name Signet of Humiliation (conversely: Pride for the passive).

Hmm it’s still to be seen, but I’m pretty sure thieves will still counter Mesmer. My hope is that it just won’t be a ridiculously hard counter anymore.

6/23/15 MESMER TRAIT REVAMP:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/6-23-15-Mesmer-Patch-Notes/first

Some people from OMFG could attest to this, but I had been working heavily on a tanky signet build that I coined “Hermetic Inscriptions”. Sense a theme yet? It was really fun, but rl got in the way where I couldn’t make a formal post. I think we may get a more streamlined version of the build I had been theory-crafting for so long.

• DOMINATION
  Confounding Suggestions, Blurred Inscriptions, Power Block
• CHAOS
  Illusionary Defense, Chaotic Dampening, Chaotic Interruption
• INSPIRATION
  Persisting Images, Warden’s Feedback, Illusionary Inspiration
• UTILITIES:
  S. Ether, S. Midnight, S. Inspiration, P. Disenchanter, S. Humiliation
• GEAR:
  Sword/Focus (Energy/Renewal)+Staff (Energy/Renewal), Rune of Water, Clerics’s Amulet

How it gives self-sustain and dmg mitigation:

• Distortion from signets & phantasm summoning.
• High protection (among other boons) upkeep.
• Healing on S. Ether boosted from clones as well as the rune. Very little shattering. Tough clones.
• Variety of condition clears, signets, rune and p. Disenchanter.

How it supports your team:

• AOE distortion when you distort.
• Boon sharing when you summon phantasms every ~24s.
• Condition clears from p. Disenchanter.
• Reflects from focus.
• Few AOE heals.
• Rooting opponents with AOE interrupts/lockdowns. Immob duration increased 3% longer for each boon don’t forget (minimum 6% due to auto might+ extra boon)!

Overall, based on theory this would be a build that could get into the thick of the battle and actually support a team with some high self-sustain on point. Not to be scoffed at as the potential power it would have with might stacks on a soldier’s amulet. Let me know what you guys think. I’ll be testing this out along with a condi shatter build. Videos coming as well!!