If you’re only going to look at it from a conquest PoV… yeah, its not the best.
Theoretically you could probably do this already with a Dom/Insp/Chrono Blurred Inscriptions build in PvE or WvW if you want. I don’t see it as being really useful however.
Like it or not Conquest is the primary mode the game is balanced around, because it’s the mode where balance has the most impact. PvE comes a close second, and WvW… a distant third (personal opinion).
But if a change would have minor benefit in one mode but a huge detriment in another, then it’s a bad change.
I agree with you. I’m not advocating changing the block, I think it should stay a channeled block. I’m just pointing out that it would be fun (aka SUPER trolly) to play around with.
If you’re only going to look at it from a conquest PoV… yeah, its not the best.
Its synergy with the inspiration line would be pretty crazy though… AoE Distortion spam, anyone?
Poor inspiration, always trying to help, to be supportive, and yet there is always something a bit underwhelming about it… While I love the line, I do think it lacks “punch” (supportive punch that is)…
Anyway, I wish to read more stories about “me” and the 6 different mesmer lines in the future.
I was really excited about the inspiration line after the specialization patch, but after playing around with it for the last few months I find it just cant compete with all the wonderful goodies we get from our other spec lines. Especially after the mantra recharge “bug” was fixed.
Shield 4 – perfectly fine but the phantasm does need a survivability rework.
Shield 5 – needs to be fixed on impact with walls.
Csplit – I’d say give it a 2s base duration for self shatter and the +1s per extra illusion shattered. That totals 5 seconds max and also allows you to do a self or one illusion shatter for more clutch play.
Seize the Moment – I personally think it’s too weak at the moment and should function on self shatter.
I second all of that stuff ^
Maybe Geesus is planning on blessing us with MH pistol!?! Yeah, thats gotta be it! Thats clearly what the trait it balanced for.
There is no way they’d just nerf something by 50% for no reason…
/sarcasm
Great Vid. The music was perfect. Thank you for the laugh.
Give us 4 empty F keys that we can assign whichever shatters we want to each, then I’d be ok with this.
Also, re-balance the cooldowns on the shatters (wtf CoF???).
I dont have time to respond to this, so im just going to copy and paste my post from the feedback thread here-
“I have some changes I’d like to see that will probably be unpopular…
I’m not liking how ‘alls well that ends well’ influences my utility bar. Its powerful, but in the wrong way. Alacrity has a very potent effect, so i find myself filling my utility bar with wells for the alacrity and not for the actual effects of the individual wells…
I also feel like the amount of alacrity we can stack through well spamming is begging for future nerfs, and we all know those nerfs will be to our OTHER traits, before its determined that ‘alls well’ is the actual problem.
So, I’d like to propose a few adjustments to our traits-
Alls well- The final effect of your wells is 25% more potent.
Flow of time- 1s again
Improved alacrity- Your alacrity effects last 25% longer. (so now it affects your well of recall and shield phantasm)
Well of recall- bumped up to 6 secs, about 9s if double traited.
Well of Eternity- Might have to shift more of the heal to the Initial cast so the AoE heal isnt too strong.
Well of calamity and eternity- get the damage boost (I think) they need, especially with how highly telegraphed and delayed the final damge is.
well of action- now can be traited for a bit more quickness
So now, if we choose to use a well, its for the effects they provide individually and those effects are now enhanced. This also opens up utility slots in group content so we’re more than just alacrity bots (because thats all I feel like…). This change does reduce the amt of potential alacrity we can provide to a group though, which is why I’m sure there will be people that wont like this."
I have some changes I’d like to see that will probably be unpopular…
I’m not liking how ‘alls well that ends well’ influences my utility bar. Its powerful, but in the wrong way. Alacrity has a very potent effect, so i find myself filling my utility bar with wells for the alacrity and not for the actual effects of the individual wells…
I also feel like the amount of alacrity we can stack through well spamming is begging for future nerfs, and we all know those nerfs will be to our OTHER traits, before its determined that ‘alls well’ is the actual problem.
So, I’d like to propose a few adjustments to our traits-
Alls well- The final effect of your wells is 25% more potent.
Flow of time- 1s again
Improved alacrity- Your alacrity effects last 25% longer. (so now it affects your well of recall and shield phantasm)
Well of recall- bumped up to 6 secs, about 9s if double traited.
Well of Eternity- Might have to shift more of the heal to the Initial cast so the AoE heal isnt too strong.
Well of calamity and eternity- get the damage boost (I think) they need, especially with how highly telegraphed and delayed the final damge is.
well of action- now can be traited for a bit more quickness
So now, if we choose to use a well, its for the effects they provide individually and those effects are now enhanced. This also opens up utility slots in group content so we’re more than just alacrity bots (because thats all I feel like…). This change does reduce the amt of potential alacrity we can provide to a group though, which is why I’m sure there will be people that wont like this.
Edited: forgot about the impact the proposed ‘improved alacrity’ would have on the shield phantasm, so adjusted values a bit.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
I beg your pardon? The Mesmer has never ever been stronger than these days!
As for pvp, since the 23. july the whole gamemode became a bit … imbalanced. But the true balance there will most likely start with HoT. Even tough, in pvp the Mesmer became much stronger within the last few months.
And pve, oh boy, we even deal acceptable dps now. All our mantras have become AoE, mimic is an acutal useful skill and our traits no longer cripple us like when we were forced to trait into the vita / healing power traitline and missing all the offensive stats.
Mesmer finally became a strong on pair class and is no longer a pure portal and time warp [female dog].
Mesmer stronger than ever? Mimic a useful skill? Wow, we must be playing different games then.
No, he is right. We are stronger than ever (at least since I’ve been around). That doesnt mean we dont have problems or dont require dev attention, though.
Omg! thank you… (would it be wrong to give credit to Geesus?). Seriously, its about time.
I’m going to start by saying I 100% agree that PU needed to be nerfed, and honestly wish they just removed the trait entirely at this point.
If you’ve followed the balance updates since the specialization patch, you’ll see mesmer has been hit with many nerfs, some of which have pushed abilities to below pre-patch levels. Mesmer has been getting the “Thief Treatment”, aka we’re getting balanced around our high stealth up-time. Its done nothing but negatively impacting build diversity because it makes many mesmers feel even more reliant on PU.
I dont want more stealth. I dont like playing thief, and I especially dont like pretending to be one while I’m on my mesmer.
This sounds really great, I would donate to keep this going.
However… I hope you’re prepared for the mental/emotional/time investment required to maintain something like this. As someone who has led and organized many different kinds of events in other MMOs (mostly FFXI), Its not easy keeping anonymous ‘friends’ movitated and organized over the internet.
Wow, I love this thread. Thank you for sharing Devs! Great Idea starting this thread OP.
IGN: Cerebell Distoria
Play: PvP, PvE
Server: Stormbluff Isle
Role: Scholar
Time: EST
I think every new player hates Thieves/Mesmers/Rangers (at least one, if not all). Until you understand all the little intricacies of this game’s mechanics as a whole, they’re very difficult to deal with. Some people just don’t let go of that resentment, especially if they never bother to actually try playing those professions.
@Ross
“3) If you dont have a cleanse and you manage to get hit, a simple disengage with inactive play will negate the torment/confusion, which passes quickly due to the short condition durations.”
While playing Condi mes, have you ever fought someone in PvP that didn’t fight back?
About a month ago I engaged a Guardian who just captured a node. 2 seconds into the engagement he noticed I was playing condi mes and just stopped fighting back…. Stood still on the node, timed his cleanses/blocks and had leeching on swap, so he’d smack one of my clones after confusion wore off. I couldn’t get him below 70% health. After rotating through my shatters and realizing i wasn’t getting anywhere I stopped also and we talked for a few seconds till one of his team came to +1.
Condi mesmers don’t kill anyone, they just give people the opportunity to kill themselves.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
When I look at the condi damage for a build like this, I think about applying versus cleansing. If 100% alacrity can be maintained, you get things like this:
- scepter block available every 2 seconds
- confusing images available every 4 seconds
- mindwrack (up to 4 confusion stacks) every 4 seconds
- cry of frustration (up to 8 confusion stacks) every 8 seconds
- diversion (up to 4 confusion) every 11 seconds
Your numbers are way off… 100% alacrity uptime is about a 40% CD reduction last i checked.
I shouldn’t feel the need to log out of matches because I cant do anything.
I’m having a really hard time empathizing with you… Mesmer is still (very) strong in PvP. We have the upper hand in most small engagements, even w/o PU.
Anonymous tip to their local news station. Free publicity!
Here is what my last ten matches looks like. I finished on top once, I am typically third and the rest of the times at the bottom of the list. Since the nerf I spend most of my time at extremely low HP since I cant stealth to get away.
And here’s my last 10 matches. I guess we can conclude from this that anecdotal evidence is totally meaningless?
Not sure but it looks like you have not played since the patch rolled out.
That match in Foefire that timed out was against me. It was definitely after the update. I was running a necro condi build to test out the scepter changes.
This thread makes me laugh. I’m imagining a bunch of gamers outside of Anet’s offices with “Mesmers’ Rights” signs.
‘Mesmers are a profession, too!’
‘DPS equality is for everyone!’
I think Denis is referring to the boons you get in stealth.
Now i almost never use PU, so i may be wrong… With the 6 seconds we were getting from the prestige we would get 7 random boons (one immediately on activation then one every second, right?). With the nerf reducing its duration to 4.5 seconds, are we now getting 5 or 6 boons over the duration of the stealth? Does that .5 second get you the extra boon?
I’ll be logging in a bit later, ill test it if no one else has.
Well there was this compromise which I liked to making phantasm a one-time attack. They would not be shatterable, they would simply attack once and disappear (while being otherwise unkillable). This would keep the flavor (you would have one pink version of yourself stabbing your enemy) but with something that can actually be balanced (because you can’t base your balance on them attacking more than once).
I didnt read this whole forum, so im sorry if someone already said this (i’ll be back later to read it)-
I would love for Phantasms to do their attack then just turn into a normal clone afterward. Have the phantasm not count toward your clone limit until it turns into a clone. So you have just as much fodder for shatters, and you don’t feel punished for using them.
Then maybe we’d be allowed to have nice things.
“its a free blast out of combat”
Yay?
“mesmer is never really sitting there twiddling its thumbs because you need to be swapping utilities at every encounter so theres prep work to be done”
Ok… so you consider being kept busy a good thing… thats reasonable. How did you jump from “staying busy = good” to “staying busy = TOP TIER CLASS!!”?
And you’re also implying that you dont switch out your utilities on Necro depending on the situation…
“Mesmers and soon chronomancers will be the best class in the game simply because of their utility”
Yes, i said they have good utility…
“their dps is not that bad in perfect conditions”
Exactly… the only place those conditions exist are PvP target golems.
So, you just came to the exact same conclusion I posted…. Thanks for agree with me? (I think?)
“So the “mesmer is bad” comments”
I didnt say, or even imply that ‘mesmer is bad’… you came to that conclusion all by yourself. I was just pointing out it also has shortcomings in PvE. The only reason i pointed that out is because you compared it to Ele… You know… the class with top tier damage AND team support.
“I have no clue about current PvE and am living in the past”.
Someone suffers from some really severe profession bias… I believe your red flag would read “every other class is super awesome! only necro sucks!”
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
ZudetGambeous.9573
“Why? Mesmer can do it, at higher stacks, with higher bleeds, and more direct damage, and access to group buffs, and stealth, and confusion.
So why?”
You have to also remember that Mesmer has zero (thats right ZERO) utilities that apply damaging conditions.
spoj.9672
“I assume you are joking seeing as Mesmer is basically the utility version of an ele. Its top tier. Might not have loads of blasts but you can use torch for one quick easy one. And mes has plenty of other tools to make you feel like you are contributing.”
Mesmer is in a similar (or opposite depending on how you look at it) boat as Necro…
Necro has pretty solid DPS and barely any group utility.
Mesmer has solid group utilities and abysmal DPS.
and what Mesmer would ever use Torch in PvE??? You do realize the blast on torch 4 is delayed 3 secs right AND is their only blast finisher? and the torch phantasm is completely worthless?
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
mesmer is still viable class……….dunno why you all think its not
Everything is ‘viable’. We’re discussing whether or not its commensurable.
it does shock me so many people complain about condi shatter post specialization patch… I was capable of MUCH bigger condi shatter bursts pre patch and condi shatter was still not thing.
Absolutely.
The only benefit now with IP is chain shatters which were previously not an option. However now Chronomancer will be mandatory in order to have condi shatter burst/application be better than it was pre patch.
Even then I’d rather have higher torment/other condition stacks on burst and less frequent application instead of spamming shatters at low cooldown to keep the condi pressure up…
I used to run that trait that reset shatter recasts @50% health (was removed, cant remember its name…). That trait made it pretty easy to roll through your shatters for max confusion and torment, then repeat if your target managed to survive… I miss seeing 4k torment roll on my screen. That could be done at range, also. Kite people into your clones, then burst them. IP being baseline doesn’t make up the dmg from MtD nerf, or the loss of shatter frequency.
While IP being baseline massively improved power shatter builds, it didnt impact condi shatter in the same way. Like i said, we used to be able to condi burst from range… now you have to be in melee range to get its full effect, and that effect is less than what it used to be… So, between ‘blind on shatter’ and IP distortions I feel like I broke even in the survive-ability department.
It’s never going to be perfect
Right or worn on your point, likely right, the funny part is that im seeing NOONE complain about that issue right now after the patch and a lot of tears about Rangers coming out of the cellar.
I have trouble understanding that, and I’ll preface my opinion with saying I have never played a Ranger… It’s about time rangers had something nice, maybe a little OP. I normally join a match and if I see a ranger on the other team I think to myself “Oh good, this will be easy”. I have never had to adjust my build because i saw a ranger on the other team.
73 hits of Burning.
So you’ve been burning for 73seconds before you died. And conditions are op?
lol and you think this is somehow balanced? It completely makes the argument of “run more condi cleanse” irrelevant. Burn stacking is broken. It cannot be defended.
He took 110.000 damage from conditions, he burned for 1min13seconds, he clearly survived a long time.
How is that overpowered? Condition cleanse is not suppose to mean you take zero condition damage, it helps you stay alive. And guess what, it did.
I have to assume with that logic, that you’re also advocating that all other conditions have their damage boosted so professions that dont have ample access to burning can apply similar levels of damage and pressure?
Burning damage is too high and bleeding is ridiculously low. Anet needs to re-evaluate condition scaling for all conditions.
I was having a lot of fun with Scepter last night, but it still has the same glaring issue… TERRIBLE life force generation.
I appreciate Robert’s attempt… but the disenchanter is still not worth using.
On the other hand, I’m surprised by how much I’m liking the Signet change… Even though the extra healing I’m getting out of it borders on inconsequential, it just feels so much better.
Off topic – I was that noob condi Necro that sent you a tell like a fan girl, Fay. I was testing out the scepter changes.
Forum bug. /15 characters
allowing full up time on clones while still shattering is a sustained condi dps increase.
Not really… With the dueling line and a decent crit rate, ALL of our other clones apply better condition pressure than a scepter clone.
Guard OP? No.
Burning? Definitely needs to be toned down.
I am not sure how you guys play.. But when i use x/pistol greatsword.. ill use my skills and swap to the next weapon to have cooldowns fresh.. then swap back.
in what situation are you sitting in x/pistol long enough to interupt 2x and get your pistol cooldowns back up without it being a huge dps/control loss in a fight.
by the time you swap to sword and swap back the pistol skills are off cooldown 100%.
the only way i can see this being used is if you play non crit.. x/pistol staff. and pistol will still take a hit from the lack of crits.
They’re still in denial…
Many Mesmers were holding out for this trait hoping it would push condi/hybrid mesmer into being not completely terrible… the truth hasnt settled in yet.
Edit: The primary issue with this trait is it being in competition with Phantasmal fury…
DD you’ll get about one extra bleed over phantasmal fury on average, but the physical damage you gain from PF (more than) makes up for it. Then when you consider that PF affects ALL of your phantasms… the extra crit rate from PF pulls way ahead in both physical and bleed potential.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
This was (and continues to be) my biggest disappointment after the specialization update. I loved running Condi/hybrid builds on my mesmer prepatch. The removal of the condition cap was going to free me from having to change to berzerker gear every time I joined in group activities.
Instead… we’ve received nothing but nerfs and inferior substitutions to our ability to apply conditions. Compound that with the global nerf to bleed scaling and how ineffectual confusion and torment are in PvE, it makes condi mesmer feel like a complete waste of time. In PvP we gained enough additional utility from our traits that our condi shatter builds dont feel completely neutered, but it does shock me so many people complain about condi shatter post specialization patch… I was capable of MUCH bigger condi shatter bursts pre patch and condi shatter was still not thing.
You forgot to mention-
-Phantasmal mage’s change to 1 stack of burning
-The ninja removal of the updated Confusing Combatants
-Our complete lack of ANY condition applying utilities
If i move my ascended rampager/sinister set over to my elementalist, fire signet’s tooltip says it deals 12k damage (16-20 sec recast)… thats no stacks/food/might.
When i run my lazy-mode D/F signet build on my ele I can easily maintain 5-7k burning with spikes up to 14k (PvE obviously, still no stacks/food).
In IDEAL situations (single target with a large HP pool that doesnt blow up all my illusions every 5 seconds) WITH stacks/food/might I havent been able to break 6k bleeds on Mesmer…
Where is the ‘balance’?
P.S. I’m very bitter about this.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
DD tweak is justified Imo. 3x bleed stacks per hit is not fun on the duelist.
Full rabid gear on pvp pre patch can let you proc 8-9 stacks bleed with duelist using only sharper images (assuming they hit)
I would consider it justified if they had also adjusted bleed scaling… post spec patch bleed damage is pathetic.
The Duelist Discipline change just killed that trait… I can’t justify taking that over Phantasmal fury now.
Everything else looks great. Its very obvious that Robert actually reads the forums.
Thank you Geesus <3
If you provided us with a little more information about your plans/goals I think you’ll find a lot more people would be interested in responding to your thread.
What mode of PvE? Dungeons/Mapping/Farming?
Do you have a preferred playstyle (Condi/power/hybrid/etc)? Is Optimal damage important to you?
Do you have budget?
Hijacking slightly…
Is there a good setup for tagging as many mobs as possible during random events while doing world completion?
Dom + Dueling + X with GS + X
X= whatever your preference
Greatsword is definitely our best option for consistently tagging multiple targets. I normally take the GS trait for open world also to keep the cooldowns low (and the other two traits are kinda meh in PvE).
Also, dont be afraid to pop off your F1 and F2 if the target your attacking is about to die. Your clones are going to disappear anyways, so dont waste that extra AoE potential.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
Great video. Love the song.
I really wish they toned burning damage down first, then evaluated what needs to be adjusted on Ele. Burn dmg is just plain oppressive atm. Then on the flip side of that, Bleed damage is just pathetic. Any condi build that relies on bleed damage is simply nonviable.
All hail our new condi necro overlords.
They control the ground, they’re tanky, they can spam 4-6k crits of direct damage AND all conditions in the game, while holding / capping a point and killing 2+ people at a time.
Seriously. There’s a reason this was and still is relevant! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrQQ9BHEstI
That video was so funny it brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing.
If you provided us with a little more information about your plans/goals I think you’ll find a lot more people would be interested in responding to your thread.
What mode of PvE? Dungeons/Mapping/Farming?
Do you have a preferred playstyle (Condi/power/hybrid/etc)? Is Optimal damage important to you?
Do you have budget?
A PU nerf is coming on Tuesday. It should have a pretty reasonable impact on the amount of time Mesmers spend in stealth.
The scepter AA drives me crazy… scepter has so much potential if the AA didn’t kitten so much.
-Its super slow, even traited
-Its even slowER at a distance
-Single target
-Clone overwrites phantasms
-Clones have the worst condi-pressure out of all our clones (assuming you’re traited into dueling)
-Ether Clone can be REFLECTED! Srsly… wtf? There is a reason Mirror blade is unblockable… I’d love to know who’s idea this was.
/rant
I’m going to assume this whole post is from a PvP perspective. Unless something is changed about the defiance system in HoT, our many ‘on interrupt’ traits are worthless for the vast majority of the new PvE content.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
This was just posted in the Ranger forum by Irenio-
“Hey all.
I just returned from San Francisco and am going to crash hard from the busy weekend at Twitch Con very soon, but first I wanted to clarify something:
During the skill balance stream on Friday we weren’t able to go into depth or even talk about the reasons and expected results for changes we did reach due to time constraints[sub]1[/sub]. Because the June 23rd patch was mentioned during the stream many people seem to expect a patch of that size and magnitude.
This coming patch is NOT that big.
Tuesday’s patch will have those changes we discussed in the livestream, some bugfixes, and more, but it is a step in the right direction. It is not the end-all.
There shall be more.”
It doesn’t look like we should expect much more than what was discussed in the stream.
The only way I can see this weapon being competitive in PvE is if the following happens:
1. add an additional bleed to the scepter
2. Increase bleed back to 0.075 scaling, it is just pathetic at 0.06.3. Mobs have extremely high toughness
4. Mobs have phases that they are immune to physical damage all together/reflect physical damage.
5. Damage is less readily available because of the need for other stats so you dont get blown up as “zerk meta wont cut it anymore”. Condi damage takes 1 stat and physical damage takes 3.
Huh?
If I move my rampagers/sinister gear over from my necro to my ele and run my usual lazy-mode signet build I can do an easy 5-7k burn dmg/sec with spikes around 12k with almost no ramp up time. If i change to a Glyph build i can get spikes around 17k. Thats w/o food or stacks. The tooltip on my Fire signet ALL BY ITSELF shows 12k burn dmg with its 16 sec (traited) cooldown… Necro condi damage doesnt compete (and mesmer is even worse). The bleed damage nerf was excessive and burn damage is just plain oppressive right now…. both need an adjustment.