The Pledge: Torch skills remove 1 condition from you when activated. While you are stealthed torch skills recharge 1.5% of their maximum recharge every second.
At 1.5%/sec that would mean we need to be stealthed for 14~ secs to get a 20% recharge reduction… that’s close to 50% stealth uptime. This trait is almost useless without filling our utility bar with stealth, or also traiting PU.
I would really like to see a change to either this trait or the torch itself-
Trait- back to a flat 20% reduction
or
Torch- reduce the torch base cooldowns to 25 seconds
This way Torch is more flexible for a greater variety of builds.
Anyone else have concerns about this trait?
I think this is one of the ways they’re trying to address the constant complaints about the ‘zerk meta’. If you can endlessly dodge there is really no reason to equip any other armor type and minimizes the value of ‘support builds’ (and no, I’m not advocating for or against this idea; this is just my impression of their reasoning).
From a mesmer’s perspective, this is a bit disappointing considering they made Deceptive evasive a grandmaster (because its “super strong” and build defining) and then nerf vigor restricting our ability to utilize it.
This trait would have been really cool if they turned Ether feast into a glamour. Especially since both the mantra heal and mirror have better synergy with this trait line because of mender’s purity. There isn’t a glamour recast trait (bc its baseline) so they could leave Ether Feast at 20 secs and not throw off its ‘balance’. It would be a lot of fun to run a glamour build where you could pop ether feast to proc super speed and some resistance.
I think its more likely people who take harmonious mantras will also take either the healing mantra or mantra of pain along with investing in the inspiration specialization. Healing mantra + Menders purity means you can get 2 stacks from every heal, and mantra of pain is on such a low cooldown you can just spam it. If you throw in the trait that makes your mantra’s AoE heal when you charge them you’re also providing some decent party support while you’re at it.
Did they also make decoy a manipulation skill?
This could definitely be a problem
Decoy remained as a “clone” skill as far as im aware.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
Or Anet is smart enough to anticipate this problem (lol, i know) and makes the mirror effect proc at the end of your stealth duration similar to how the blast finisher works with the prestige.
Now that I’ve crashed from my hype high i’m seeing a few things that i’m less than thrilled about.
The Pledge- REQUIRES prismatic understanding to be useful and at least one other form of stealth, otherwise the cooldown reduction is basically non-existent. With the way it is now it should just be combined with PU as a chaos GM.
Phantasmal Mage- 6 seconds of Burning? Using their new formula for burning we’re looking at 131.5dmg/sec with no condition dmg, 441.5dmg/sec with 2,000. Overall… not impressive at all. I guess giving us access to fury is meant to make up for this? Thematically, it makes way more sense for the mage to inflict buring (imo), but the dmg is really unimpressive. Hopefully they adjust the mage’s physical dmg up a bit to make up for it, or adjust the burning to something like 2 stacks for 4 secs.
Confusing Combatants- 33% chance on crit… we’re double gated from this effect now? Even in full rampagers armor that’s a fairly low proc rate considering the potency of the effect. I understand it was very powerful before, but should be closer to 50-66% on crit or have it be a flat 33% chance or have its duration increased.
Ether Feast- Didn’t become anything… could have at least made it a glamour. It doesn’t make any sense, but at least you could trait it to give super speed and short duration resistance.
There were a few other minor things that i cant think of atm…
anyone else seeing these items as problems?
I LOVE almost everything I’m seeing. Only thing that is missing is Ether Feast… what did it become? Did i miss something?
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Mikkel.8427
wow… you guys couldn’t be any more melodramatic. 400 hero points is going to be more than enough for anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex to unlock everything they need on their alts. Don’t want to do the hero challenges? well… dont. It really is that simple. I highly doubt you use every single trait/skill on every single alt; get what you use and move on.
We don’t even know all the details about the change yet either… who said each hero challenge is only worth 1 point? I watched all the videos, nowhere in any of them did they quantify the value of the ‘hero challenges’. There are about 205~ hero challenges in the world atm. If each trait line is going to be worth about 65 points that means we only have enough for 2 elite specs per profession atm. That seems kind of restrictive to me, especially when the primary reason anet is making this change is to open up future horizontal progression opportunities. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were worth more than 1, maybe even scaled in value by the level of the zone they inhabit.
Save the QQs for when we are given more details, we simply do not have enough information yet.
If Imbued Diversion was baseline, what would they do for F3 in Master of Fragmentation?
I like the idea, I’m just struggling to think of a substitute in that trait.
1 sec immobilize/clone?
In last week’s stream they showed off DH in pvp and asked which elite we’d like to see next… so we should be seeing reaper or chrono this week depending on the feedback, and then the other next week. Basically, nothing new. I’m assuming we wont be seeing a new specialization stream till the week after next (friday, June 5) which will probably be druid if they continue following the order on their professions page.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/
I expect the next 2 weeks we’ll be seeing Chrono and Reaper PvP footage + boring rehashed info we’ve all already heard. Then they’ll reveal 3 more specializations and repeat. So, we have 12 more weeks of reveals + PvP footage (not including the reaper) which puts us in october already. Then they have Reaper reveal part 2 + specialization, guild halls, new PvE exp, lore, etc… its looking closer to dec unless they start picking up the pace.
It’s memorial day. I think we can all safely assume that most (if not all) of the staff had the day off.
I support the OP.
The passive on the signet should be conditional. Have it scale off of their adrenaline. example- 70hp/sec at full adrenaline, 362 when empty. This way it rewards active play (using burst skills).
It absolutely needs something done to it though, its ridiculous that it heals more than the Mesmer’s signet when mesmer’s need to keep and maintain 3 illusions for their passive.
would be cool if we could use it to copy someone’s stacking sigil attribute bonus.
See, I like the Scepter a lot for my build. Overwriting old clones with new ones is what my build is based on, so being able to summon a ton of new clones (thus killing the previous one, exploding into a bleed/rooting AoE) is imperative. As with the Torment, and the clones stacking its’ own torment. Granted, I also use the Torch as my offhand, making aggro wipe a lot easier so mobs will be more likely to attack my Clones, killing them, and rooting the mob. Slow ’em down, hurt ’em, transfer aggro to a clone, let the clone die, and repeat!
By doing this, I’ve made a rather viable (or, at least, good enough for me!) build using the Scepter, which relies heavily on its AA.
Anet is getting rid of all the ‘on clone death’ effects in our traits… so, your build/play-style will be even less effective after the trait adjustment update.
Outside of PvP, I rarely use shatters. I’d love to see our Class Mechanic do more for us in PvE and in non-shatter builds. It’s almost counter-intuitive to blow up Phantasms when they’re supplying close to half our DPS and function as a portion of our utility.
I’d like to see small passives added like a Guardian’s virtues-
Mind Wrack- Passive- ‘compounding power’.
Its super boring as a trait, so this makes room for something more interesting. Also, bumps up personal DPS in non shatter builds by a little bit and helps focus down people b4 shatter bursts in power shatter builds. Mesmer’s personal DPS is so weak, and we lack personal dmg modifiers so this would help close the gap a bit in our sustain.
Cry of Frustration- Passive “Vengeful Images”
Retaliation is the boon version of confusion, and we’re losing all of our ‘on death’ traits, so makes smashing our illusions have some element of punishment to it. Scales with Power, so in power based builds that never touch this shatter get something out of it. Also makes room in Inspiration for a less lame minor.
Diversion- Passive “Illusionary Defense”
Again, boring as a trait. Seems fitting.
Distortion- Passive- Phantasms have distortion on summon
This really should be more accessible. Having a phantasm smashed b4 it has the opportunity to attack once sucks. This way when you use distortion it feels like you’re taking it from your illusions.
Thoughts?
Scepter #1- get rid of it… make it one boring attack (like every other ranged weapon) with a small splash radius that inflicts torment.
Scepter #2- change it to work like the new shield block… you cast the clone at the end of the block if you didn’t block anything.
Scepter #3- I actually think this is fine the way it is…
Sword #1 and #2- both fine…
Sword #3- This skill drives me crazy. They either need to remove the swap mechanic from it and make it so the clone leaps and inflicts Immobilize on its first attack OR increase the summon of the clone to 900-1200 range (like every other illusion) so we can actually use this skill as a gap closer.
Was hoping saying it once was enough but I’ll say it again. This is a work in progress. Try to give feedback based on the utility and synergy of the trait instead of the numbers. Slow every 3rd critical hit could also be every 10th critical hit. It could be 8s of slow instead of two. Obviously these numbers are an attempt to be accurate otherwise we wouldn’t even give them but a lot of this stuff will go up and/or down before HoT is released.
Jon
I think most of us understand this is all subject to change, but playing with the numbers is part of the fun.
Thank you for participating in the conversation, I know its not easy watching people tear apart your work. Also, I’m shocked you got these traits to us so quickly… i was sure we’d be waiting 1+ week before seeing them.
I’ll start by saying I’m extremely happy to see some movement speed in this trait line. I dont even care care if F5, shield and wells turn out to be completely useless at this point, that minor more than makes up for it imo (THANKS ROBERT <3).
I need more information about ‘Flow of time’ though. That description is a bit ambiguous. Assuming Alacrity works like the opposite of chill (like they said)-
If its only 1 sec/shatter thats -.66 sec recasts per shatter -.88 traited (underwhelming and gimmicky)
If its 1 sec/clone- thats 4 secs of alacrity with 3clones + baseline IP which is -2.64 sec recast per shatter, -3.51 traited (Bordering on OP)
So… I’m not sure what to think of alacrity yet.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
Other than the elite well…. no. All of the wells’ effects are back-loaded which means either the enemy needs to stand in it for the full duration (unlikely) or you need to stand in your well till the end and face-tank things (not smart). Mesmer relies on its mobility to survive… which means both you and your opponents will be moving.
There is a reason Robert (our presenter) took either feast as his heal when he was fighting things that could actually hit back. Then to show off well damage/effects he chose a mob that stood still! you know, like most mobs/players do! (sarcasm)
I would be really happy if they just got rid of ALL weapon traits. Adjust all weapon cooldowns/effects accordingly. Kind of sucks being trapped in a specific trait line because you need the weapon cooldown, especially now that you will need to take the entire trait line to get it.
I really think Anet just needs to separate our phantasms from our shatter mechanic. I see that as the biggest obstacle in our DPS… maybe bump up our illusion limit to 5 circles.
Something like-
red red purple blue blue
Where the red circles can be clones, blue phantasms and purple either. Then when we shatter we only use the illusions that hold the red and purple positions.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
Looking for Chronomancer’s “Something just as good”
Revamped profession mechanics- Guard’s mechanics were already useful in all mediums of play. Meanwhile Mes mechanics are ignored in many builds, and basically useless in PvE. BUT we need to stop being lazy and use shatters anyway because blowing up half our damage and a good portion of our utility is a good thing! (???)
2-hand weapon- Enough said.
More damage modifiers- Because Guard struggled to keep a place in the meta (right? right?)
Thematically and graphically, I love what they did with Mes; extremely cool, but the traits are going to have to be OUTSTANDING to compete with the only other Elite we’ve seen so far…. and I’m highly doubting that to be the case.
Then we have alacrity… but from our presentation it looked like we’ll have extremely limited access to it, and for ‘balance’ purposes they’ve put long cooldowns on shield and well skills nullifying its benefit.
Am i missing something? Maybe i need to watch the videos again.
PS- sorry for all the sarcasm. I know it doesn’t always translate well in text.
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
I bet they already intend to nerf it (again). They’re redistributing some of the stat points we’re losing from our traits to our base stats increasing them from 926 to 1000. Our crit rate is calculated as ((Total Prec- Base Prec)/21) +4. So, i bet we’ll see Prec now calculated off of the 1000 as base after the change effectively lowering our crit rates by about 3.5%.
I’m still hopeful they just add pistol main-hand for mesmer baseline. We already have the pistol trait in dueling, so it wouldn’t make sense to have a whole specialization to put another pistol in our main hand.
As far as our next elite specialization after chrono goes… I’m hoping mesmer gets Longbow. Seeing how Anet thinks mesmer should only have offhand weapons though, we’ll probably get warhorns.
@Mikkel
Yea, that’s about right. The f5 shatter is supposed to be complimentary to the shield, to compensate for the fact that a single off-hand weapon has less abilities.
That still leaves an identity problem for baseline mesmers, who have nothing distinct compared to chronomancers who get the new weapons and abilities (wells).
Ok, then we’re not talking about just mesmers then… we’re talking about the specialization system as a whole. Every profession will have to weigh the value of the extra utilities and weapon that comes with their elite. The only way you can see that as a problem is if you consider the extra utilities and weapon to be better than everything else the profession has access to. Which is what makes this argument silly… at this point that’s 100% speculative.
I think everyone is looking at this the wrong way… Specializations are supposed to give us access to an additional weapon (we all know this part), BUT every other class is getting either a main hand or 2-handed weapon (so far that i know). so, I’m pretty sure the F5 shatter is intended to be the “something just as good” to make our specialization competitive with all of the other classes. If we had to give up something additional for it, it really wouldn’t be ‘just as good’.
You guys are comparing our base specializations with our only elite at this time instead of comparing it with what the other classes will be getting. There is a reason we will only be able to equip one elite at a time- its intended to make an impact on the way you play. That does not make it better than the base specializations though… that’s silly to suggest.
Just when I thought this couldn’t get any worse, ANet manages to surprise me. What a disaster. I hope the Druid specialization is a nature spellcaster with plant pets, mesmer got shafted hard.
Giving a powerful skill a counter is being shafted? What? It lets you use your elite skill twice, what more can you ask for?
A new main-hand weapon?
Everything that Fay said.
Nothing about chrono seems even remotely OP to me, its just an alternative/interesting play style. The only place i see chrono really shining is in coordinated group play with wells and AoE quickness/ alacrity being a substantial boost to the ‘stack and spank’ meta.
Ok… well, everything looks very cool and interesting, but I’m hoping the addition of F5 isn’t the ‘something just as good’ they promised for professions getting only an offhand. I’ll hold off on any criticism till tomorrow, i need to see more specifics.
I don’t see any reason why they could not program the reflect to proc after the invis effect is intended to wear off… the same way the blast finisher is programmed for the prestige.
I’d really like to see this trait changed to something like-
A) Combine it with Phantasmal Haste or Compounding Power
Anet is trying to get Mesmers to use their profession mechanic more, but you lose these enhancements after you shatter. There is less of a penalty because you’ll be able to renew your phantasms a bit faster.
B) Change its effect to ‘Phantasms no longer shatter’ (this is my favorite option)
Phantasm builds can take this trait and still take full advantage of baseline IP.
C) Just get rid of it. . .
Anyone think this trait is useful or have other suggestions for it?
You cant interrupt the scepter AA chain with another ability though… your going to get that clone if you like it or not. Unless you just don’t use your Auto attack (or turn off AA, only swing twice, then hold off long enough to reset), but that’s self defeating. I could easily choose to just not use my scepter #2 IF i had 3 phantasms up while not negatively impacting my DPS. That is the difference, I would have control of when i spawn that clone if and when i wanted it.
Edit: The block is also not reliable enough for shatter builds… so we would need an easier way to produce clones if we removed if from the AA. Hence, adding it to counterspell… balanced for more than one type of build (imo).
(edited by Mikkel.8427)
This wont require anyone with 3 stat armor to get new armor… they’re being melodramatic. They will simply need to replace a couple of accessories to re-balance their stats. The only people that should be concerned are those with ascended celestial stats since Anet has specifically stated they’d be toning that stat set down (code for NERF HAMMER!)
Anet really just needs to remove the clone from the third hit of the AA chain and speed up that third hit a bit. Then add the clone to counterspell so we can proc a clone through scepter #2 either with the block or blind depending on the situation.
They share your base stats (Pow,Prec,Fer,Tough,Condi/boon duration). They dont share your VIT, they have a set amt of health you need to trait or use the signet to increase. They also dont share flat bonuses like sigil of force (5% dmg) or accuracy (7% crit rate). So if your interested in beefing up your Phantasms crit or power dmg you want to use things that inc your prec/power like a stacking sigil or might.
Playing around with a bit of math trying to predict how Anet will handle the lost stats from the trait trees. Just going off what i know so far… so none of this is based in fact, just projection.
14 trait points are worth approx 1400 stat points
they mentioned inc base stats(pow,prec,vit,tough) by 74 points= 296
we’re getting half of our Class Specific Mechanics cooldown/enhancement as baseline so thats worth about 150 stat points.
1400- 446 = 954
Divided into a normal 3 stat distribution is something like 394 280 280 ish
So a full set of ascend gear (armor,trinkets,weapons) might be giving us something like 1486 1025 1025.
For berzerker’s it could look like power 2486 prec 2025 fer 1025 (no runes)
If you were full invested into the power stat line that’s 168 more power.
Disclaimer: I did not double check my math and i have no idea what they’re doing with things like fer/cond dmg/condition duration/boon duration… This post was 100% conjecture for the funz.
I agree with the weapon specific traits part. It does feel very restrictive on certain classes.
Especially when you’re duel wielding on two weapon sets… your weapon choices basically lock you into certain trait lines/traits. Getting rid of them would probably involve heavy nerfs to some of the traited additional effects though, which would be really unfortunate.
Anet announced in their stream that all classes will be getting half the effects of full traited ‘resources of the class’ as baseline (no investment in a line. Example: -15% to all shatter cooldowns). With the other half being attached to a trait within the original trait line, which i believe is now attached to one of the minors, so you get it automatically just by investing in that trait line.
As far as Condition duration and boon duration are concerned…. i have no idea. I’m still waiting to hear what they have planned for them. I may have missed it in the stream though, i didn’t get to watch it in its entirety. Its also not listed in the AMA notes, so maybe someone else will know.
With the upcoming changes, we can expect all abilities to be classified into existing skill types. Time warp will most likely be a glam, Mass invis i expect to be a manipulation, which leaves Moa to become either a signet or Mantra. This gives Anet and interesting opportunity to flesh it out. As a signet we can get an interesting passive, and as a mantra they can break it into 2-3(traited) charges… maybe 5 sec duration each? possibly AoE?
Idk, but what do you guys think?
I’m going to start by saying i’m ok with how things are setup… but if they were to just swap the positions of duelist disc. and sword training life could be even more awesome.
Being able to get evasive mirror with sword training.. or phantasmal fury with duelist disc would be awesome and more synergistic imo. But maybe that was the point? they positioned them purposefully to limit they’re effects?
well… i would like to see Phantasmal haste moved to inspiration line to replace the useless retaliation. Then have Deceptive evasion moved to where they currently have phantasmal haste… That would make more sense thematically with those two ‘specializations’, and make a few builds i currently run still functional.
Persisting Images + Protected Phantasms together doesn’t make sense…. With distortion on creation the retaliation basically loses 1 sec of its possible proc window… should just combine those two traits and drop the retaliation.
Persisting Images- 1 sec of distortion on creation and +20% health
Imho, confusion should last much longer and deals lesser damage.
I used to kill champions in curse shore dealing 6K with confusion. A 33% dmg increase would lead that 6K to 8K. A damage like that is ridiculously huge for a single condition. No other cond can reach those numbers.I’d better prefer a long-lasting confusion (worthful in pve/pvp/wvw) that deals approx 1.000 max dmg per ticket (25 stacks), in line with every other condies
This post doesnt make sense… Mobs use an ability about every 6 secs, so if you’re doing 6k dmg ever time a mob uses an ability you’re already doing the equivalent of “1,000 dmg per ticket”.
Love the changes, especially as someone who likes to run a hybrid condition builds on mesmer. Two critiques, though:
1. Why no love for the confusion duration on the Dueling Grandmaster Minor- Confusing Combatants? This minor is practically useless with confusions current mechanics, should be around 5 seconds.
2. Dropping Superior Sigil of Battle down to 2 stacks is a huge nerf… I completely agree that might stacking is extremely powerful and needed to be toned down, but I think it would have been much more effective to leave battle alone and reduce the effects of might even further instead… like 25 power/cond per stack.