Guild Wars 2

spacelion.9865:

Mere Image: I agree with most of your posts but feel that rather than nerf burst dmg builds across the board, they should bring the weaker classes a bit up to par. That way every class can feel somewhat useful.

This.

It’s not that I want us to be nerfed. I just want some of our other builds to be equally viable. Mesmers in guild wars 1 built themselves to counter different classes. Now the best builds, undoubtedly, rely on shatter bombing. Anything else is limited in effectiveness comparatively.

I think this ability needs to be balanced. Mesmers are too much of a one-trick-poney now. What made this profession awesome in guild wars 1 was their ability to COUNTER other classes. In this game everything is just too simple. Confusion isn’t a counter, it’s an easily inflicted lock down that takes no skill to perform. Shattering is now arguably the best repeatable burst damage in the game. Meanwhile, they nerfed tank builds and phantasm are still weak. Don’t even get me started on condition damage.

What happened to the post where ArenaNet said they were nerfing burst damage across the board (meaning the warrior, thief, and the mesmer)? Instead they made burst damage stronger, more desirable, and even easier to deliver. Thieves, for example, are now even faster, meaning their probability of landing a backstab is even higher.

I just don’t understand they devs. I’m glad they tried to fix us, but honestly I feel that they don’t live up to their promises and that they rarely acknowledge what their players want. Thank you for attemting to fix us, but in the next patch I would prefer a nerf to shattering, hundred blades, and backstab (like it was promised) and a buff to other builds, like my tank build and condition builds with the scepter. Don’t let the most unique class fall into the trap of being focused on one thing.

I think it was nice for them to TRY.

Honestly I’m a little surprised they made some progress, while a bit upset that they nerfed membrane. Less then a week ago I made a video about a bunker build used for fractals because our phantasms were unreliable…well now protection with membrane has a 15 second cool down which is quite frankly a bit much. Week after week I try making something different to adjust to the patches, while being somewhat unique. Guess its time to go back to shattering like the rest of the mesmer world.

Phloww.1048:

Mere Image.8376:

Here’s a guide that breaks down the build to the basics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XfMN57yGDM

Yay, someone else who also uses staff + sword/sword! :-D It’s good to know that it can be used in fractal 12+. I run a similar build using 0/20/25/0/25, but I’ll give yours a try (that is, if none of the traits/skills got nerfed).

Staff is a give, and I’ve just always loved playing a caster with swords. Plus they are great for defensive play as well as awesome offensive weapons. I’ll have to try out the 0/20/25/0/25 build later.

Oh, and you can be sure it will nerfed it is a mesmer build after all.

Here’s a guide that breaks down the build to the basics.

By doing “something” I really hope that doesn’t mean slight fixes with unintended new bugs, as it has been the last 3 major patches. I have a right to be distrusting at this point. This is not the time to hope for changes; it’s the time to demand for them.

ArenaNet gave us an early Christmas present this year. “Your class is now kittened.”

I truly don’t understand the logic in making phantasms have a delay in their attacks. First of all, there are already easy methods to avoid phantasms now, starting with limiting phantasm generation: Blind, dodge, aegis will all prevent a phantasms from even spawning. Whereas if a warrior uses hundred blades, the first blow is merely nullified and the rest of the attack lands. Secondly, phantasms can be destroyed. A staff guardian can autoattack, destroying all illusions that may be on route for a shatter. Thirdly, no other profession has their attacks pre-displayed. Let me put this in warrior terms again. Imagine you’re playing a warrior and a banner appears above your head every time you use hundred blades to indicate what you are doing. Not only that, but you must now suffer a delay in your attack. It makes no sense to cripple a single profession like this. IT’S ILLOGICAL. How is it fair to punish a class by, firstly, nerfing their ability to land an attack. And secondly, by making it easier to avoid the attack if it even activates properly.

This is why I’m upset: it’s less probable that our attacks will even land anymore; our damage was nerfed when we don’t even come close to the damage of other classes in terms of weapon skills; even if our attacks can even be “summoned,” they can easily be killed before the damage or even the effect of that phantasm can trigger. We have the most difficult time getting our attacks to land, and now those easily avoidable attacks / utilities are weakened once again.

And btw, phantasms never had a delay in their attacks. I read a recent article about layoffs at NCSOFT. Also I have noticed that the guild wars team is always advertising for additional programmers. My bet would be that they lost the members who were originally responsible for designing the mesmer and their skills. We get nerfed each patch, with the addition of an “unexpected” nerf that is not even listed in the patch notes. Which is unprofessional and quite frankly, bull crap.

Xynn.2748:

ANet tried something new with the Mesmer concept and it was too much for them. They don’t know what to do with the class mechanics (phantasms/illusions and shatter) and I think they would rather just turn Mesmer into a traditional casting class.

ANet took a bold step in a new direction and found out that the ground was rocky and that they had forgotten to wear their shoes – time to turn around and head back to safer ground (nerf everything and figure it out later).

PS I love having you guys in my fractals due to some of the fantastic utilites they bring. Please keep the faith and know that the community understands that you work 300% harder for 80% as much.

WOW, that means a lot coming from another profession.

I truly don’t understand the logic in making phantasms have a delay in their attacks. First of all, there are already easy methods to avoid phantasms now, starting with limiting phantasm generation: Blind, dodge, aegis will all prevent a phantasms from even spawning. Whereas if a warrior uses hundred blades, the first blow is merely nullified and the rest of the attack lands. Secondly, phantasms can be destroyed. A staff guardian can autoattack, destroying all illusions that may be on route for a shatter. Thirdly, no other profession has their attacks pre-displayed. Let me put this in warrior terms again. Imagine you’re playing a warrior and a banner appears above your head every time you use hundred blades to indicate what you are doing. Not only that, but you must now suffer a delay in your attack. It makes no sense to cripple a single profession like this. IT’S ILLOGICAL. How is it fair to punish a class by, firstly, nerfing their ability to land an attack. And secondly, by making it easier to avoid the attack if it even activates properly.

This is why I’m upset: it’s less probable that our attacks will even land anymore; our damage was nerfed when we don’t even come close to the damage of other classes in terms of weapon skills; even if our attacks can even be “summoned,” they can easily be killed before the damage or even the effect of that phantasm can trigger. We have the most difficult time getting our attacks to land, and now those easily avoidable attacks / utilities are weakened once again.

And btw, phantasms never had a delay in their attacks. I read a recent article about layoffs at NCSOFT. Also I have noticed that the guild wars team is always advertising for additional programmers. My bet would be that they lost the members who were originally responsible for designing the mesmer and their skills. We get nerfed each patch, with the addition of an “unexpected” nerf that is not even listed in the patch notes. Which is unprofessional and quite frankly, bull crap.

JonPeters.5630:

So studying it here empirically we think berserker is just missing and not less damage, but that duelist was actually impacted by the “bladetrail” bug fix. I will try and up the duelist damage and I will try and track down why berserker is not always hitting.

This is one of the first times we’ve gotten such excellent responses from a dev. Thank you so much for looking into this and being open with us about the problems. Not being kept in the dark and knowing something is being done or at least looked into is wonderful.

EsLafiel.4517:

Mere Image.8376:

I actually now run a tank build for dungeons: power, toughness, vitality. I probably should have gone with toughness, vitality and condition damage, but either way I’m unkillable. Stand aside warriors and guardians. 0 damage given, 0 damage taken. Who needs phantasm? Pshh. It’s actually quite fun, minus the lack of damage.

If you actually a tank build then your phant should survive for a long kitten time.

I know my phant survive, long enough for me to keep 3 out at all times.

Even my defender who takes damage from when party members gets hurt. Even that last 10-20 sec and a lot of the time it even last long enough for the cooldown to end.

Because of that I can keep a defender out 80%+ of the time.

Maybe your phant are bug and not getting the boost from your stats.

It’s not a phantasm based tank build. It focuses on giving myself permanent choas armor (from null field and feedback and chaos storm), and perma protection from my runes (with increased boon duration) and whenever I gain regen. Basically I can take a hit often and am unphased by conditions,, but half the time I have aegis or I’m invincible from blurred frenzy. Also my glamorous blind AoE so I can take on several mobs without taking any damage and by that time boons are up again with increased duration from runes and traits, but this is all off topic.

Sorry

Rather than fix our class, make it so others are equally hurt by aegis and blinds. The full hundred blades attack should miss as opposed to the first blow. When guardians throw down symbols they should fail, same with necros. AoE for elementalists should not be able to hit targets if they are blind. None of that makes sense, just as the mesmer nerfs don’t. If you get hit by a meteor, in a game or in reality, it doesn’t matter of the caster was blind. That kitten thing is going to smash your face in. If I’m blind, my phantasm can still see you, and it’s a mental projection so it shouldn’t matter anyways. It’s just too much at this point.

I actually now run a tank build for dungeons: power, toughness, vitality. I probably should have gone with toughness, vitality and condition damage, but either way I’m unkillable. Stand aside warriors and guardians. 0 damage given, 0 damage taken. Who needs phantasm? Pshh. It’s actually quite fun, minus the lack of damage.

Let the harmony of our agony rise up like a requiem and bring us holy sanctification!

WvWvW = warrior vs. warrior vs. warrior

I will be thrilled if the devs actually attempt to fix us. The fact that one is actually responding to our concerns on this thread gives me hope that my class will live on! Thank you. But in the meantime, it’s warrior time! Spam 2 ftw and crush all mobs that stand before you while I laugh at fellow Mesmers watching their illusions turn to dust!

The devs aren’t going to respond to this thread again. I, like many of you, openly opposed the nerfs, knowing more were soon to come. I’ve played this class since the beginning of guild wars 1. I originally thought the reason this (and the engi) were the least played professions was because they both required a less direct set of skills. Now I’m just under the impression that no one plays it because this class is the most annoying to play. Not merely difficult. It’s a real pain when nothing works right. I have since started playing a warrior, and I hate it. But how can you deny perma swiftness, press 2 and beat everything in PvE, and 20k crit kill shots in WvW. Yes, warriors in full berskers can kill almost any profession that doesn’t trait into toughness or vitality in one shot from 1200 range. That is balance for you. Our best ranged phantasm does 6k to pure glass cannons and they nerf them. Warriors can deal 20k from the same distance without any reprocussions. So they beat rangers at range, and have the highest dps burst for mellee in the game. This, my friend, is balance.

I checked the other forums for each profession. No one else feels they got hit like we did. Rangers were disappointed that they got an insubstantial nerf for trap exploits and not a much needed buff, but no one nearly got hit like we did.

For everyone still trying to be positive about this profession, you’re a kitten idiot. They have nerfed us and nerfed us. Part of me thinks it’s some part of a psychological experiment where they test the limits players are willing to put up with utter bull crap. I loved this game. I still love parts of it. The graphics, inspired by the concept artists work, is beautiful. The concept of the races is marvelous. The gameplay is complete kitten if you aren’t playing a warrior. What do they want us to do? Is there some type of build were too dumb to see that they are pointing us to? Tell me what I’m missing?

I know why Guild Wars is always looking to hire new programmers now. The ones they have are utterly garbage. Either they have no idea how changing the code will actually affect a mechanic before they release it live, or they don’t give a kitten’s kitten. I think the total makeover kit should allow me to change professions. This is bull crap. Once again. Thanks for “fixing” us.

BP is spawn camping with siege. I’m originally from GoM, but I came to sorrows to kick some BP behind. Unfortunately they thought it was cool to place balistas outside the spawn and have a guild guard them. The 5 or so guys led by a commander sucked so bad in the actual fight that they fled from me, a single squishy player of average skill, to attack me with their siege like a boss.

I like this post by OP. He doesn’t rage about the thief class being OP, but just gives his honest opinion. I agree, although I just wish they would fix the rendering. If they made the game run like its supposed to to, the recent nerfs would be kitten

Seriously, we shouldn’t be okay with nerfs and no bug fixes. It gives them the okay to continue poorly implemented patches, when we should be discouraging these kinds of things.

I hate when I’m within range to use a certain skill and it doesn’t work. Then I have to wait for it to recharge. I don’t get the damage, the shatter, the utility. Just a wasted skill.

Can anyone share their tank build? I’ve been running a glass cannon for the last few weeks.

Harbinger.8637:

Yeah, I’ve been playing a tanky build since I got to 80, and it’s a blast. Good luck trying to hit me, but if you do my toughness is +1700 so it’s not going to hurt that much. Plus my condition dmg is +1300, so I can bring the pain too.

Class is a blast to play.

A little off topic, but 1700 toughness is nothing. I have 1800+ on my glass cannon. 3000+ in any star is considered high. 2500 or so is a moderate amount.

I shattered before it was mainstream. #hipster

Kincaidia.3192:

Sweet jesus we need dueling so people on both sides can put their money where their mouth is.

We really do, dueling would really show if its merely the class or the player that sucks.

We need to keep complaining until the fix these bugs. I’m fine with balance nerfs once they get rid of all the bugs. Why oh why did I get map completion!

Voting for it would be ideal, because it would require players to be aware of their leaders and place standards for receiving it. Unfortunately ArenaNet will not intentionally get rid of this money sink in order to make the game better.

Blinded.6279:

People are going to come on here and cry about every class until everyone has no abilities, just pillows to swing around, hoping not to get a feather in the eye, otherwise they will get taken away too…. Seriously, man the kitten up, stop QQ’n in here, drink some skillorade, and learn other classes/how to counter them.

Are you clairvoyant? Because I’m pretty sure you can’t tell if you are being sniped in a massive Zerg. A one shot kill from that range isn’t counterable unless you’re aware, and no player is good enough to keep track of 50 different players actions at a time.

roostapro.9827:

well…at least it isn’t a Bard were you’d get 1shotted critted for 245k+ by getting hit with its Guitar………..

but Yeah, Warriors need nerfed, not Buffed, Eles Need Buffed, Not Nerfed & Thieves need a small nerf & a small buff, Rangers need Fixed….

But ofc, they only play 2 Types of classes so we won’t see any sign of balance, or them taking comments from the community who play the game and do something useful with it.

If you watched the video in the first link you would see that a warrior can easily one shot from a range of 1200. In Zerg fights you won’t even know what hit you. But 20k crits will pretty much kill anyone. It takes so much skill to press f1 and have a homing 1shot crit. That’s the definition of balance for this game. At least make it have a maximum of critting up to 90% of a persons health so they can dodge roll once they know they are being sniped.

It shouldn’t have even been introduced into the game in the first place. Now it’s messing up WvW. People shouldn’t be required to do PvE to be their best in PvP.

Isn’t it odd that warriors do more ranged damage than…RANGERS? Screw wasting supply on building a ballista in WvW when you can have 10 kill shot rangers pick off full health enemies like flies. Warriors have the toughest armor, high health, amazing mobility, the highest melee and ranged burst damage, and now they are more deadly than siege! But not to worry folks, their lack of awesome utility skills makes them a balanced class.

leprekan.7248:

Moderator.9672:

Hi,

Please keep the discussion constructive and friendly.

Thanks for your understanding.

Constructive and friendly would be much easier to achieve if we were given an idea of WHEN you will be fixing this. Roll back the changes until you figure out how to implement your “fix” without breaking the class beyond being playable.

I played Warhammer where the devs told us the Archmage was broken …. and then left it that way. I will not continue to support this company if you are going to take the same approach. If you break it … fix it.

Thanks for your understanding.

Love how you tagged that “Thanks for understanding” portion at the end. LOL

Yeah, they have been very hush hush every since the beta. They used to release videos and COMMUNICATE. Now they rarely respond with short paragraphs that basically say nothing except “thank you for understanding that you now suck a little bit more.”

Ksielvin.1587:

Mere Image.8376:

Check out the thief, mesmer, and ranger forums. We all got b-slapped in the kitten face. As a mesmer nearly all my phantasm attacks miss now. I’m a PvE player, so I don’t know how this affects PvP. Sorry you guys took a beating too.

Thanks for your sympathy but for the sake of fairness I’m gonna correct this one too. Warriors didn’t suffer in the patch and have been mostly not even been mentioned since launch. One of our least used weapons was even buffed a bit. Just the bug fixes were insignificant and not the stuff everybody has been hoping to see for a long time.

The new bugs that got introduced for mesmers and rangers suck of course. Not aware of unintended thief changes yet.

Well that’s good news for me. I’ve recently begun leveling my warrior

Why don’t they just limit the amount of people able to port? The longer CD doesn’t fix WvW, which means more complainers = more nerfs. Now I can’t be as awesome of a helper to people that suck at jumping puzzles

Exactly. And why should would ArenaNet be mean to the class they practically invented? It makes no sense. It was even the last profession to be revealed, because it was the most anticipated.

RhysSebastian.7651:

AOE blinds shut a lot of things down lol. They have ways to remove conditions en masse in an area. They just have to clutch control it in combat, just like any other class when they are shut down.

So meteor shower should miss its targets when the caster is blind? Or should the caster simply have that skill say “Obstructed, OBSTRUCTED OBSTRUCTED!” I agree with you, ArenaNet should fix LOS. Make is so no skills can be used on blind that requires the caster or fighter to see its target. You’re a necro, right? You are no longer able to cast marks on the ground when people dodge, have aegis, or you have them blinded. Enjoy

I play a Mesmer and agree with the OP. The “fixes” ArenaNet keeps releasing aren’t the fixes they promise. They promised to nerf BURST DAMAGE across the board. Well Mesmers can still shatter for 10k but our mechanics are broken, warriors can still one shot with hundred blades (which is fine since its easy to avoid), thieves can still backstab just as well as ever. This patch didn’t nerf a thief’s burst damaged, it ruins the other builds that aren’t glass cannons, which is quite a shame. Not saying backstab should be nerfed by any means, just stating that this “fix” only hurt people that play builds other than the glass cannon BS thief.

Thanks Moddo for your support of our class despite playing another. We all appreciate it!

Check out the thief, mesmer, and ranger forums. We all got b-slapped in the kitten face. As a mesmer nearly all my phantasm attacks miss now. I’m a PvE player, so I don’t know how this affects PvP. Sorry you guys took a beating too.

Are they adding legendary armor eventually, after all this ascended BS? S that way I can waste more money and time? To hell farming this dungeon without a guarantee that I won’t have to do it again for the new best thing. I’ll wait for legendary armor, since ArenaNet has stated legendary will always be as good as the highest tier. What happened to designing an MMO to be fun, seriously I won’t to know what the are thinking. They continue to lie; the last patch, for example, hardly did anything for the broken classes. They don’t communicate we’ll with their players are care about their opinions. They need to make a video addressing these issues. We haven’t seen any of those since they lied during the game’s development to get more people to play. Now all we get is a brief paragraph that hardly has any application or meaning to said complaints. It just doesn’t make sense.

Played a mesmer since guild wars 1, and while its the only archetype that I actually enjoy playing I’m leveling a warrior so I can crush other Mesmers in WvW and get everyone to complain about warriors being OP and Mesmers being underpowered. Once ArenaNet is swamped with complaints and they buff us again, I will switch back. #taking one for the team I WILL BE BACK!

Please level a Mesmer to lvl 80 in a PvE only environment before you make posts that only display your ignorance of the class and its mechanics. Thank you.

As others have stated, Mesmers’ ability to do ANYTHING is very reliable on our phantasm. Say, for example, that I am facing an opponent that suddenly pops aegis as I used my illusionary disenchanter, this phantasm does little damage to him but removes a condition from myself. Are you saying I shouldn’t have the ability to remove conditions from myself with my condition removal utilities? iBerserker is the most complained about phantasm for Mesmers after the nerf because it was our source of AoE damage. When farming in ore, an elementalist can shower meteors on his foes, necros have AoE marks, we had a phantasm that spun and hit enemies in a certain radius. By your logic, elementalists’ meteor showers should miss their intended targets, and they shouldn’t be able to attack people on the walls of keeps in WvW; they should have to do supply runs like us because we can no longer attack people along the walls with our AoE. At this rate, we might as well lose phantasms and become purple elementalists.

I play a mesmer and we got picked on too, I’m also rerolling a warrior or quitting the game because I hate dumb classes that get huge bursts to make up for their stupidity.

Screw this game. I’ve been a fan since guild wars 1 and I thought since they practically invented this class that they would make it a decent one, but they continue to nerf it week after week. Every Monday I would debate rerolling and I finally have. Great job, so much for balance. There’s a reason warriors are overplayed. ArenaNet claims they want balance, but they continue to nerf one of the classes with the lowest raw damage. Do they want this game to become a warrior fest of who can hundred blades the fastest?

So much for some freaking balance. Warriors can hit 15k easily with hundred blades, saw a video last week of one using a rifle for bursts of over 20k in WvW. I can hit 2k with my best phantasm running full berskers from head to toe. You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.

I HAVE HAD IT!

Oh, wow…I like this idea quite a lot!

From a WvW perspective, stealth is invaluable for a solo character. Wen taking on 3 guys with a glass cannon build its extremely useful. For my build I go full glass cannon and rely on those utilities for survival. Allows you to escape death while not compromising on damage.

Leave the warrior alone. Hundred blades is so predictable that you have to be really oblivious or unaware to your surroundings to let it hit you. I killed three lvl 80 hundred blades warrior on my mesmer yesterday in WvW. OP really just comes down to the player, not the class. All classes can be OP if played correctly. You just have to know how to counter them, and hundred blades is the easiest to counter in my opinion. Use Aigis boon, dodge roll, stun breaker, etc. Don’t feel doscouraged, try playing a warrior and learn it so you counter it.