Guild Wars 2

Gaining boons upon clone destruction is just as passive as doing damage or any other condition. Instead, the survivability of clones/phantasms in and of themselves should be looked at.

AOE damage to get rid of clones is an inherent weakness of playing the Mesmer class. It should not be gotten rid of imo. Remember, you can spec to give illusions more defenses in Inspiration. How competitive those traits are is obviously up for debate (or not lol). Are AOE and cleaves an issue game-wide? If so, it should be addressed on a game-wide basis.

That all being said, I would say NO to all on-death traits unless they affect illusions/phantasms specifically. I just don’t want the actual Mesmer gaining buffs for enemies doing what they naturally should do to counter a Mesmer.

I’d rather Anet make clones/phants like they are vs PvE mobs. Take only 10% cleave damage, and 100% damage when the focus of attacks.

X And obviously, these numbers could be tweaked appropriately in PvP. This change, alone, would have dramatic effects on build diversity.

As someone who took full advantage of the trait, I would not like it to come back. There are other ways to rebalance our class without bringing back a type of trait (passive) that is currently bringing the game down.

It’s Anet’s fault for making stronghold a game mode and then leaving it to rot. Remember the last new map that was deleted???

The easy solution was to just make it a hot join arena. I don’t know why they insist on deleting maps so often. The more variety the better for the community imo.

I agree with the general gist of everything in the few posts above. However, to use the term “gutted” with RI is a bit of an unfair exaggeration. My thoughts:

1) RI is mainly taken for the condition clear. It still remains our best condition clearing by FAR when you also consider the built in Menders Purity. As far as I’m concerned, the healing was a nice cheap addition tacked on that needed to be adjusted anyway.
2) The effort was there to make changes to incentivize healing stats. Unfortunately, the devs obviously miscalculated. How they did this, I don’t know, but we are on track and can lobby for them to make further adjustments.
3) Inspiration is still an extremely profitable trait line and worth investing in. It will remain competitive due simply to the condition clearing. That being said, general stats have to be looked at with a critical eye. There’s no reason to take healing amulets in PvP which is a shame, and it appears this nerf only marginally addressed the issue.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

As usual, need to keep the full picture in mind instead of just a single trait nerf.
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TLDR: Lots of changes to meta incoming. Especially the new rune and amulet are bringing a new meta. Dueling active defense and damage is going to be the way to go. Don’t fret about the inspiration nerf.

@DuckDuckBoom with an excellent analysis.

I know it’s easier to jump on the bandwagon but two important facts…

1) if you’re running power Mesmer, you’re running a generally underpowered spec.

&

2) if you’re a power Mesmer running inspiration, you’re really running an underpowered spec by gimping your power potential.

In conclusion, yes, this nerf hurts power mesmers, but are we really seeing any true power mesmers run inspiration in the first place? Honest question considering I’ve been on hiatus for quite a bit so excuse the ignorance if it applies.

The fear-mongering is strong in this thread.

Revs won’t be a dead class, and it’s nerf isn’t destroying all of PvP as we know it.

Emdrix.6124:

With the changes coming to rev there will be no way to effective way of killer bunkers especially when stacked. And this will make solo Q even worse because there is not much team coordination. Be prepared to fight teams of double scrappers, eles, guards druids, and condi wars to some extent.

Enjoy bunker wars 2, season 5 has already failed before it started. Enjoy matches going to timer and brainless bunker builds being unkillable even when played poorly.

I’m really surprised. Game mode splits will do ALOT moving forward. My confidence (albeit with a healthy sense of skepticism) in the devs has been renewed.

Carighan.6758:

• Gravity Well, it just doesn’t fit well. We already have a CC elite and the other wells are supposed to mess with time somewhat, which ofc clashes with Time Warp. Maybe time to fold two skills here, accelerating friends and freezing enemies in time.

Really disagree with you here. This skill can totally disrupt clumped enemies in PvP or WvW especially if combined with our interrupt traits (Mistrust, Powerblock or CI). That stacks of might/confusion I’ve gotten out of this in just one pulse is hilarious. Besides, “freezing people in time” sounds like yet another CC elite.

I’ve been out of the game the last month or so but maybe I’ll come back with a few suggestions.

Well, at least PvP Mesmer wasn’t directly nerfed like I thought it would…

+1 for an interesting conversation. I can see it being put to some good use with the Diviner Ammy.

Furious Interruption is decent but needs to be adjusted. It deserves a boon-rip of some kind in order to ever compete with SC. Something as simple as remove 1 boon on interrupt would suffice. SC would still remain the more powerful boon ripping tool in general, but this buff would give lockdown builds a way to actually remove boons while still taking the most possible interrupt traits.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Was this necessary? It was already a top build last season without these very powerful and game changing buffs.

*Mesmer *
For this update, the mesmer is receiving mostly baseline utility changes. Both the Phantasmal Disenchanter and Defender skills now have on-cast effects to gain a little more immediate effect and to differentiate the utility skill from the Mental Defense trait. Mirror Blade’s last bounce has also returned, offering higher damage to power builds.

• Mirror Blade: Increased the number of bounces produced by this attack from 3 to 4.
• The Prestige: The number of burning stacks have been increased from 1 to 3 stacks for 3 seconds.
• Illusionary Mage: The recharge of the mage’s attack has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds. Burning stacks have been increased from 1 to 2 stacks, with the duration reduced from 6 to 3. The missile velocity of the mage’s attack has been increased by 33%.
• Signet of Midnight: This skill now delivers an unblockable attack and will no longer apply blindness through evade. This skill now applies 10 stacks of vulnerability as well as cripple for 5 seconds, in addition to blinding enemies.
• Mirror Images: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Arcane Thievery: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 35 seconds.
• Mantra of Distraction: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 12 seconds.
• Power Lock: The recharge between uses has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Mantra of Resolve: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Mantra of Concentration: The stability duration has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds per activation.
• Phantasmal Defender: This utility skill now applies protection for 4 seconds in a radius around the mesmer. The damage reduction from this illusion has been reduced from 50% to 33%.
• Phantasmal Disenchanter: This utility skill now delivers an additional attack when it is initially cast, removing boons from enemies and conditions from allies in a radius around the target.
• Phantasmal Haste: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from working with Illusionary Avenger.
• Echo of Memory: Updated the skill fact for Echo of Memory’s duration.
• Ineptitude: This trait will now track the internal cooldown for confusion application on a per-target basis. The blind earned from dodging and evading will now properly apply confusion as well.
• Illusionary Inspiration: This trait will no longer activate Signet of Inspiration when phantasm casts are interrupted.

Hi Trevor. Can you do me a favor and underline the above changes that were, as you say, in the “already a top build” that you speak of?

Pyro has the type of shade that is so icy and condescending. I miss it. I’m back from hiatus guys after this awesome update! I’m a huge lore buff, so this new living world season 3 update has me supremely excited. I also like the new PvP map… anyway.

I’m loving the buffs to Mesmer. Overall ,we weren’t nerfed, so I’m very happy. I really liked the phantasm/torch buffs. I don’t use GS often at all, but reversing the nerf on Mirror Blade is significant.

There’s other remarks I could make, but I’ll just fade into the background and get back into the game.

I don’t think it would hurt to have the animation be more in line with other signets. This is coming from a player who doesn’t really play Moa. Additionally, I’m never really the target of such a skill.

That all being said, the rise of Moa isn’t surprising, nor is it a huge issue. There’s a lot of counterplay already. You can see if a Mesmer has Moa in their utility just by targeting them. That alone should keep you on guard AND keep in mind who they’ll target…

Hmm I’m just rambling at this point.

tldr: Moa has an easy enough telegraph as is, but I wouldn’t be opposed to the signet appearing while you cast whatsoever since it is such a game-changer AND it’s not a signet.

People play PU in 2016? Wait, people complain about PU in 2016?!

I beg Kormir to grant me understanding and truth.

eta after actually reading the thread:

Fay, have you ever fought a mantra PU burst mesmer in WvW roaming before? It is pretty cheese b/c PU is OP.

Balance decisions should never EVER be based around WvW Roaming. /thread

Mesmer is not bottom tier. The world has not ended. Tangentially speaking, based purely on my experiences in this second season, Mesmer > Druid.

May Lyssa bless you in your adventures both in Tyria and The Mists!

Thanks for the post! I’m always searching for Mesmer main streamers! May Lyssa bless you with viewership!

StickerHappy.8052:

DeathReign.7821:

MailMail.6534

Lastly, those specific suggestions on improving our condition cleanses were tongue in cheek. Obviously, it requires a bit more than simply tacking on an additional condition removed from The Pledge, but the point is to provide alternatives that have pros and cons worth being considered in the first place. Of course taking the pledge would mean slotting yourself into another trait line. This is a small example of how diversity works, because you’d have two lines where you should have decent condition removing options. Let’s not get into the minutia of this specific trait though.

See I don’t understand why you would be so opposed to weapons gaining condition clears when that would ultimately give you more build diversity than having to be tunnelled into 1 or 2 trait lines.

Really curious too.

It’s not that I’m vehemently against it. It’s more so that it ignores the problem with our current [subpar] options. It doesn’t solve the issue of Arcane Thievery, Mantra of Resolve, Null Field etc. And it definitely doesn’t solve Mesmer’s issue of being locked into 3 utilities. If you solve those 2 issues, specifically the latter, you have no need of bloating the game with even more new skills to be balanced.

It does open up an interesting discussion though. Which weapons would even make sense to tack condition removal onto? I could definitely see torch’s trait being baseline. Maybe Mind Stab removes a condition for every boon removed from enemies? Does that make thematic sense for a purely offensive weapon? Hmm, very interesting!

Could you elaborate please? Conditions should be balanced – how?

I thought I was specific enough. You balance the condition meta by balancing (or nerfing if you’d like to use that word) those classes who have the highest potency and velocity of conditions.

Also could you elaborate on “reinforcing different support roles” please? It sounds interesting but so ambiguous.

The last league was a glorious time for Mesmer. You know why? Because we had build/role diversity that translated clearly across all levels of play, not just top tier. Yes, bunker was easily the most viable, but you certainly were not locked into this role or 3 utility slots in order to do well.

All of the wells received ample play. Signet of Inspiration saw use. Null Field was a popular support utility taken. Bursty mantra builds saw some play. This is because you were able to play bursty roles (Condirupt, mantra, shatter), supportive roles (boons, rezzing, condition clearing), mid defender, home point guard etc etc etc.

Lastly, those specific suggestions on improving our condition cleanses were tongue in cheek. Obviously, it requires a bit more than simply tacking on an additional condition removed from The Pledge, but the point is to provide alternatives that have pros and cons worth being considered in the first place. Of course taking the pledge would mean slotting yourself into another trait line. This is a small example of how diversity works, because you’d have two lines where you should have decent condition removing options. Let’s not get into the minutia of this specific trait though.

Very interesting concept indeed! I like it in theory.

From a design perspective, I wonder how hard this would be. Our class is centered around clone-summoning (skills, utilities, traits) so how do you compensate for this? This idea is not as simple as you’d like to probably believe.

Ananeos.4587:

I have a feeling everyone is missing the point I’m trying to make here…

Your thread title was as follows: “Condi shatter meta – why?”. This was answered in detail by pyro.

In terms of your actual post, it is chock nearly full of inflammatory assertions and inaccuracies that aren’t worth responses. I don’t know what other point you’re trying to make here that is in need of understanding.

I repeat: Mesmer doesn’t need any new condition cleansing utilities/skills. One of the following things must happen instead:

• Conditions must be balanced overall across professions who spam them the most.
  If this happens, there wouldn’t be a need to take Inspiration in highly competitive builds. You need less condition clearing in a condition meta, so you have the luxury of choosing whether you’d like to go Inspiration, Mantra Cleanse, Generosity Sigils, etc.
• Current Mesmer cleanses must be balanced to compensate for condition spam.
  Right now, it’s obvious that Inspiration gives awesome condition clearing, especially in combination with WoE. Skills/Utilities such as The Pledge removing 2 conditions, Arcane Thievery receiving a massive CD reduction and others being buffed would definitely help to make them more appealing as alternatives.

Ideally, I’d like to see some a combination of both with an emphasis on the latter.

Tangentially, Mesmer balance has always been plagued with the issue of being restricted to few utilities (Blink/Portal/Decoy). How do we gain more flexibility with utility choice? My gut tells me it’s by reinforcing different supportive roles…

Xyonon.3987:

I wouldn’t say that blasting ethereal fields is the problem, nor the buff they grant. It’s the chaos armor itself wich is garbage. It would be nice to have a trait that changes all your ethereal fields to “some fancy chrono based new name” fields wich apply 2s quickness or 1s slow with projectile / leap finishers.

This is very cute, but doesn’t solve the issue at hand. That being said, I’d definitely prefer this trait over some of the Chrono slow traits as long as the combos work for allies as well as the Mesmer in terms of blasting, leaping and projectiles…

Let’s try to keep the thread on topic…

Ways to make condition removal more accessible for Mesmers?

Is it necessary to do such?

Should it be a natural counter to Mesmer?

Is this really a Mesmer-issue or a “meta”-issue?

What decisions should be made for better health of the entire game instead of just Mesmer?

I’d rather they switch the now defunct Time Warp with Portal than make Portal an F-skill. Mesmers should be able to bring more to the table than portal; we should have higher standards for Mesmer balance.

edited to add:

To remain on topic and reinforce my opinon: we have plenty of options for condition removal. I do not think we should get more options but rather fix the structural issue with Mesmer balance that prevents us from taking those options.

StickerHappy.8052:

Solution: Make condition removal be located on weapon sets like Ele Earth Focus 4 or Thief Sword so You are not pigeonholed into running Inspiration

I’m a bigger fan of making our current skills/utilities better instead of introducing new mechanics that will inevitably need to be re-balanced anyway. We have plenty of condition removal. They just aren’t worth taking for a variety of reasons that need to be fixed.

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

I’m not quite qualified to make an opinion yet on the current meta as I haven’t played much and it’s only been two days. However, let’s please make it clear that Mesmer has access to a wiiiide variety of condition removal. The viability of these options is what should be discussed. The real meat of this situation comes down to build diversity.

Currently, I’m running a Vipers condi shatter build with Mistrust using nothing but Generosity Sigils… and with positive results. You will be screwed by Necros no matter what build you run (support, boons, dps, interrupt, condi), but is this worthy of buffing Mesmers or nerfing Necros? That is the bigger rhetorical question in this debate.

Running no removals outside of generosity sigils is something power shatter builds have done for ages. As always, it’s always been a good solution when you’re not fighting anything that actually loads condies, and woefully inadequate against anything that does. If you ever come up against another build that’s actually loading condies, you’ll just wither up and die. Try surviving against a condie engie when 1 attack loads you with 5 condies and your only removal is generosity.

I get what you’re saying, and this isn’t a rebuff against your claim that running no condi clear makes you susceptible to a variety of builds: I pick my fights wisely. Running glassy builds means you must have a precise judgement on when & how to engage while also recognizing that you most likely will need the support of your team in some situations.

Maybe I’m facing bad condi engis. Maybe I’m a decent player. Maybe I’ve gotten lucky team comps. Whatever the case Lyssa has bestowed upon me, I haven’t had any issue with them preventing me from a win. Literally the only class that I dread seeing in any match are necros. Even the baddies can press a few buttons and totally shut me down.

I’m not quite qualified to make an opinion yet on the current meta as I haven’t played much and it’s only been two days. However, let’s please make it clear that Mesmer has access to a wiiiide variety of condition removal. The viability of these options is what should be discussed. The real meat of this situation comes down to build diversity.

Currently, I’m running a Vipers condi shatter build with Mistrust using nothing but Generosity Sigils… and with positive results. You will be screwed by Necros no matter what build you run (support, boons, dps, interrupt, condi), but is this worthy of buffing Mesmers or nerfing Necros? That is the bigger rhetorical question in this debate.

Sticker <3

+1

Shadowflare.2759:

To sit on the bench. From the results of every patch since launch, it’s been made clear that eles:
1) Are not allowed to burst hard
2) Are not allowed to be mobile like thieves
3) Are not allowed to be tanky
4) Are not allowed to be a jack of all trades.

What are we allowed to be? A kitten support that can barely do anything on its own.

The removal of cele wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just revealed how fundamentally flawed eles are. Maybe in 5 years eles will actually get the changes it needs.

For someone who’s been playing for 3 years, you sure do have convenient amnesia concerning the roles Eles have been able to effectively fulfill in the last several metas…

EDIT: this is not to say that eles aren’t under-powered now. I just don’t think we should be oh so dramatic with these outlandish claims. Make a case, but be legitimate when you do.

Jourdelune.7456:

My 2 cents, Mistrust work great with Staff 5 and Gravity Well.

+1 Mistrust works best with AOE interrupts like Chaos Storm, Tides of Time, Traited Diversion Gravity Well and Mantra of Distraction. Pistol has always been a condi weapon suited best for single-target dmg.

@Messiah
Hey buddy! Long time no speak!
About the build you suggested, it’s really interesting! The frequent blocking is quite interesting. I might actually try it out once I get sick of the build I’m using. I imagine I will prefer the one I’m currently using, but I’ll see. A few changes I’d make right off the jump:

• Ineptitude over Malicious Sorcery. The latter really is only worth it for Scepter 3. Ineptitude provides not only offense but a ton of defense when you’re in sticky situations. With the amount of blocks you have, you should be able to keep up a good amount of blinds. It also adds a stack of confusion onto every shatter (if you’re melee). Sorry, I just have not ever been impressed with the current iteration of our scepter trait…
• Vulnerability sigils over Geomancy. You will get some bleeds from Staff clones that are pretty lengthy in and of themselves. If I want to add a condi via a sigil it’s either gonna be poison or Vulnerability to act as a cover condi.
• The torment runes are good in theory, but I just feel like it’s too singularly focused, and doesn’t take into account the build’s ability to focus both torment/confusion as big damage dealers. Still, if the torment doesn’t get cleared, I can see these durations being very deadly.
• I assume Duelist’s Discipline is a typo. Definitely Phantasmal Fury here for iSwordman’s crits! He hits like a truck I imagine.

The only issue I see is that the build seems more reactionary since your clone generation is almost entirely based on blocks rather than summoning them yourself. You also don’t have a lot of range at all, and when you’re playing Vipers, being in melee for too long will surely spell your doom. It’s the reason why I love Staff so much. I can create some distance while still doing big damage from range via Chaos Storm, iWarlock or shatters.

Good theorizing as usual though!

Levetty.1279:

Can’t wait to get that 5% increase to scepter auto attack damage in 3 months.

#SpoilAlert #InB4CondiMesOP #HypeTrain #TheMetaIsChangingAtAnAlarmingRate

Gaile seems like a nice and genuine dev.

Had a long reply and it got lost. -_-

tl:dr- This is a hybrid build. AOE cleanses would be the “bane” of a build using Rabid Amulet. Yes, exactly the term to use in that case. For someone using Sinister/Vipers, not so much. There are damage sources outside of Confusion and Torment. Additionally, using Chrono/Illusions gives me the ability to keep up constant pressure via shatters. Even if the confusion burst is cleared, they still have to worry about more conditions coming their way.

We shall see how things shake out in the new season but I’m optimistic about the bursty role I’ve provided for my teams while using Mistrust.

Here’s the build I have been playing mostly in the off-season… and with great success:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAreWncfClphNqBGpBEgilZjqMAqtcDd4ipioeX/1hF-TJRHABk9EA8uMAAnCgU2fAA

It kind of plays like zerk Staff ele in that you ideally want to free cast from a distance (Time Catches Up makes this possible). That’s about where the comparison ends, because you can actually do immense dmg in melee range. The issue is that you can’t be in the thick of team fights, because you’re pretty squishy. Typical of a high risk high reward build which I think is the direction you want when using Mistrust. You’re able to +1 fights out of no where; multiple stacks of confusion is particularly good against enemies caught off guard.

I’ve settled on pretty much everything in this build except the third utility slot and Rune of the Berserker when I’m feeling particularly YOLO. Also, I take Phantasmal Fury sometimes (iWarlock hits like a semi). It depends heavily on the enemy/team composition. Obviously, MoR for when I know I need condi clear. SoM for when I know I don’t need as much condi clear. Portal for when I’m in an organized team of 5.

Yes, there are a few professions and specific builds out there that this will be clobbered by. Necro’s buffed transfers are one of them. That being said, I haven’t met a thief that could beat me 1v1 thus far without completely disengaging from the point. Remember, this is a squishy build, so don’t expect to never go down unless you are with an organized team.

That all being said, the damage this build can do from landing an AOE interrupt[s] on a stack of enemies is insane. I’m getting 15+ stacks… I highly suggest people try it out before ripping the concept to shreds. We’ll see where it stands after more testing and when we’re able to face stronger opponents in ranked.

I can see your point. However, I might fundamentally disagree with you based on the likely reality that Anet will always have elite specs be stronger than core specs. I know their biggest selling point of elite specs is that it’s a different way to play your favorite classes, but I’ve always felt like it was implied that they were stronger as well…

Hence the difference between a specialization such as Inspiration or Domination and that of an elite specialization such as Chronomancer.

Ananeos.4587:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Ananeos.4587:

Is there a reason why I would ever play this verses a 2 button 20 poison stack necro?

Necros get focused
Mesmers drop focus?

You’re going to focus 3 necros at the same time?

No, but you only need to drop one and stomp to turn the fight in your favor. For as strong as necros are, you do have to pay attention as they have always been high priority targets and will continue to be such for a long time coming.

Silverkey.2078:

Please stop saying self-alacrity should remain 66%… The situation was:

• shared alacrity was OP in PvE
• self-alacrity was OP in PvP for bunker specs

Actually, many people in PvP even suggested to reduce the effectiveness of alacrity on self while keeping the shared alacrity as it was, because self alacrity was the only really OP part.

Yes, alacrity was strong on a bunker spec. You know what’s still decently strong even in the chaos that is unranked? Bunker Mesmer. You know why it’s only decently strong now? Because of the changes to quickness/slow, our boon up-time and the over-buffing of almost every other class. The Alacrity nerf really only negatively impacts all other Chrono specs from my experience… What a shame.

There were a myriad of ways to curtail the effectiveness of bunker Mesmer. One way was shaving the numbers on traits like AWTEW, Flow of Time and Echo of Memory. I would have even liked a shaving of 16%. This is what they did before which impressed me as it was indicative of careful balancing. They chose to demolish the entire trait line instead.

And even NOW it makes no sense why they didn’t compensate for the alacrity nerf by reducing the CDs of some of our longer utilities and skills like Wells of Recall, Eternity and Precognition (lol). Even Well of Action could be buffed a bit since the neutering of quickness/slow.

So no, I won’t stop saying that one solution is to split the effectiveness based on self and group, because that’s a simple and straightforward way of correcting a few issues among many…

+1

Initial comment:

• This is like the third Mistrust build I’ve seen without the Illusions trait line… which perplexes me. You really are missing out on maximizing how strong Mistrust is to forgo it. I do understand why people prefer Chaos though as it’s an amazing trait line. I’d still probably take Bountiful Disillusionment over CI though. The stability is just so good. Combine that with Blinding Dissipation and you have unstoppable stomps.

Someone pointed this thread out to me… As an aficionado of the condition play style, I’ve personally concluded that Rabid isn’t the best amulet to run. You either go big with Vipers/Sinister or go the safer route with Mercenary.

The fact is that unless you’re going down the former route, it will be hard to make a difference in team fights unless they are longer battles. If you aren’t good in team fights then you should at least be able to defend home point. However, that’s an issue with constant stealthing…

This build is better suited for a far point assaulter. And to reiterate, an amulet change would help in that regard. Hmmm.

FJSAMA.2867:

Conclusion: Alacrity will only be a chronomancer buff. No longer shared with allies. No longer well spam for alacrity sake. More build variety.

What you guys think. End of headaches?

Sorry for skimming your thread, but I don’t find it worth reading just from noticing these few statements.
1) The big selling point of Alacrity is that it can be shared with others via Chronomancer.
2) The idea of build your so-called diversity from lack of alacrity sharing is silly. Now, chrono is just an “improved” Illusions tree.
3) The only way to end this headache is to make self-alacrity 66% and ally-alacrity 33%. Anet has the tech to do this.

After playing a bit in the hot mess that is unranked, I’m feeling the alacrity nerf. Before, I wasn’t as bothered at the thought, but I’m feeling like it’s severely over-nerfed…

I really like the idea of Arcane Thievery being an ground targeted AOE boon corrupt. That would definitely justify the long CD of kitten in my opinion.

Korusef.3714:

@MailMail you forgot to mention the change to the Precognition well

What’s Well of Precognition?

In other news: I never thought the day would come when I feel absolutely useless against thieves again. The amount of evades they have are pretty ridiculous.

He’s right about something for once. And in this case, he’s right about it all unfortunately.

kolompi.1287:

Pride.1734:

All the overdramatisation.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Winter-s-Presence-and-the-Community/5861076

We all seem to be prone to it if we are passionate about something.

carefully applies ointment to Pride’s wounds

Feedback: This skill is now ground targeted and no longer requires a target.

• I’ve been asking for this for quite some time now. Very happy about this. Not as though this utility gets much use anyway though.

Mental Defense: The cooldown on this trait is no longer affected by Signet of the Ether.

• Unnecessary nerf. The very long CD on SoE justified the synergy it had with Mental Defense. This makes me pretty angry.

Ether Clone: This skill no longer generates a clone if the player has the max number of illusions. It instead applies 2 stacks of torment for 5 seconds.

• “OK.” in my Paris Hilton voice. I’d rather have a full health Scepter clone on top of my enemy than 2 stacks of torment simply for the shatter benefits. We’ll see though.

Chaos Armor: This skill no longer blinds enemies. It will instead apply weakness to them for 3 seconds. The applied duration for swiftness and confusion has been increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.

• I like weakness… that being said, the conditions are supposed to deter your enemies from attacking. Confusion/Weakness/Blind makes sense. Cripple does not. This is a condition build nerf as we lose synergy with Ineptitude. Dumb Nerf.

Chaotic Dampening: The duration of protection has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.

• FAIR. I can live with this.

Duelist’s Discipline: The chance to bleed has been increased from 33% to 50%. Bleed duration has been increased from 5 seconds to 6 seconds.

• This is cute. I like this buff.

Restorative Mantras: The healing attribute scaling of this trait has been increased by 400%. The healing from this trait will now be listed in the combat log.

• I like this a lot in theory. Mantras still suck so much that they aren’t worth using…

Furious Interruption: The cooldown of this trait has been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.

• And it’s still not worth taking over the other two. This trait will only make sense when it also strips 2 boons.

Evasive Mirror: The duration of this trait has been increased from 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds.

• This is still a subpar trait except in wvw I guess??? I don’t even know. I don’t even care.

Mistrust: The number of confusion stacks this trait applies has been increased from 2 to 4.

• YAY the little person in my head says they listened to me on this one too lol. I know this skill has been discussed a lot. Interrupt traits need to have oomf behind them. 4 stacks is enough oomf to almost be worth it in a condition build that wants more dps over the defensive lines of Chaos/Inspiration.

Malicious Sorcery: The attack speed increase from this trait has been increased from 15% to 20%.

• OK. We’ll see how this works out…

Bountiful Disillusionment: The duration of resistance applied in a radius has been reduced from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.

• This nerf makes me angry. Obviously, our resistance duration has been out of control due to BD?

Temporal Enchanter: The duration of resistance granted by this trait has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

• This nerf makes me even angrier, especially as a glamour fanboy. Resistance was not an out of control boon for us. Nerfing both this and the resistance on BD seems a bit harsh.

Overall, I’m severely unimpressed.

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

eta- which brings me to our horrible downed state… It needs to be fixed.

Yes, so horrible that the 2 skill guarantees stomp blocking from an unlimited number of sources unless they slap you with revealed. It’s the second best downstate skill in the game, no contest.

Our downstate is fantastic, I have no idea why people complain about it.

Enemy starts stomp. You time your stealth “perfectly”. You reappear with a stake in your chest. This happens way too many times. They’ve tried fixing this before. Maybe I need your help on how to use down 2 more effectively….

Also, it’s quite annoying when I stealth into a new position off point, and my enemy lets me bleed out while I watch the point decapped. Yes, this is a small complaint, but in some games, the few extra seconds of stalling on point is enough for an ally to get there to prevent a full decap.

Wouldn’t that be awesome if it did though? :/

eta- which brings me to our horrible downed state… It needs to be fixed.

It’s hard to speculate. The 5% buff doesn’t really excite me though. I’m more nervous about them over-nerfing their changes after a week of people complaining. This will be the 100th time it has happened to condi Mes.

I’ve seen much personal success with Carrion chrono condi shatter. I assume the new Mercenary Amulet will replace it as the most effective one to use with condi shatter from my POV.

I’m not particularly a fan of the squishier amulets or the ones with no power stat whatsoever. I find that you don’t really need the precision unless you’re going Dueling but then in my head, how can a build really work without ONE of Chaos/Inspiration in this meta?! We’ll see though… the meta is changing at an alarming rate.