Okay im getting sick of people saying Thieves are OP. … If people knew how to face a thief everything would be okay, but they dont.
For the topic, I hate to address anything with thieves until the culling / rendering situation is handled.
What I can’t stand though is the argument I just quoted. Why is it always the defense of the strong class that other folks just don’t know the secret to beating them. Are we to believe the manual on how to kill said OP class wasn’t handed out with the rest of them? People don’t seem to have much trouble figuring out everyone else, so what is it that makes this particular class so difficult to understand?
If it’s blatantly more difficult to “solve” one class than the others, does that not basically prove there is a balance issue?
(edited by Mister Mustard.7203)
We have the same amount of people as you and HoD.
I don’t have any hard data to support my opinion, but I believe this to be 100% false. I understand all three servers have been victim to population exoduses, but I don’t think GoM was hit as bad as the other two. HoD and ET have been the lowest scoring NA servers for 8 consecutive weeks, and that’s through all brackets except 8. You cannot seriously assume that happens for any reason other than population imbalance.
This MAY be the bracket where population and participation start to even out for them. But from the looks of things, I doubt it.
Having said that, I don’t think it matters either way. As long as you’re not cheating, who cares how you win if you do win … having more help is a GOOD thing.
I haven’t looked at anything recent, but at least as of ~ one month after release, Mesmer was the least played class, followed by Necromancer, then Engineer, according to a census.
Highlighted the pertinent parts for those of us who don’t have the best reading comprehension skills.
Mesmer is the least played class? Seriously, go around any LA Overflow and you’d see two mesmers before seeing 1 engineer. Engineer is the least played class followed by Necros (which is steadily rising in numbers). As soon as the class is fixed especially the tool kits and sigils, expect more people to start rolling an engineer. kitten I hate bandwagon people.
…. And that’s why you can’t spit without hitting a mesmer now. Things change, sometimes quickly. A perception of being an “OP” class, or a string of buffs and / or nerfs can make for a lot of bandwagon re-rolls.
Or, you get folks like me who actually seek out the least-played classes. I started with Mesmer but in the past two weeks I’ve made an engineer and a necro. Still trying to determine which I like better.
You want to figure out what percentage of posts are actually valid questions, and then do the response ratio. I don’t particularly care for the thought of them wasting resources responding to every ridiculous rant on the forums. Or responding to questions that have already been answered elsewhere and can be easily found with a search.
And let me first explain that yes, I think listening to your players and what they want is important, to a certain degree. But ESPECIALLY in the area of class balance, the forums are the LAST place I want a developer. Class balance needs to be looked at from the top down, and a lot of times what the player wants is nowhere near what the player needs.
I play a mesmer.
What I’d like fixed about the game, in order:
1.) Terrain exploits allowing folks to enter areas safely that they normally couldn’t otherwise. There is NO reason for any wall on any WvW map to be exploitable.
2.) Fix the ‘culling’ issue.
3.) Address Portal as a unique movement enhancing ability. If the other issues are fixed and Portal remains the most single important ability in the game, then get rid of it and give mesmers a suitable escape / movement oriented substitute utility.
Let me see … can I equip a GS? Yes, yes I can.
I’ve also been curious how this works.
More like, if you are downed and you take damage from a player then it should slow the reviving process. If you are spiked then you should automatically return to the nearest spawn point or switch to map so you cannot see till you pick a spawn point, you should not be allowed to be revived after being spiked.
You would be allowed to be revived if you were downed and finished from range and not spiked.
That would sort alot of the bull with 1 good player that can beat 4 people yet those 4 keep reviving each other
Yeah man, I am with you.
I always roll with a small group of skilled players in WvW, and we can normally take on at least twice our number. Problem is though, if that group just decides to chain revive…it is EXTREMELY difficult to kill anyone. We will burn most of our CDs killing most of the enemy, but then the survivors will just chain revive all the downed people…and we will have to wind up running.
The power of combat rez is an annoying mechanic that favors skill-less zergs over small organized elite squads.
I get your point, but at the same time I can’t help but think that the scenario you laid out is actually reasonable and fair. You’re talking about taking out at least twice the number of opponents … what you make up for in skill, they made up for in numbers. If they bring any less to the fight, you stomp them and move on. This way, it’s a wash.
And I find that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t think everything should be watered down so talent plays no role, but I don’t think you should be Beatrix Kiddo while everyone else is the Crazy 88’s either.
It’s going to be interesting. ET simply has almost no representation from what I’ve seen, so it appears to be primarily a two-way fight. And with so much area to cover, if GoM can’t reverse its own recent downward population trend, I imagine AR will have a very strong match this week.
If want great ranges damage then give up your stealth and portals. You can’t have everything.
You mean trade long cooldown gimmicks for sustained ranged and aoe damage?
Sure, where can I sign up?
Mesmers are one of the most useful classes in WvW!
I think the people complaining mostly just want to play it as a pew pew laser beams dps-only type of class and just ignore its utility & secondary effects all together. That or they simply don’t play other classes to realize how good we actually do have it.
People are complaining because it is really boring to be in a siege as a mesmer and people play to have fun.
Boring is so subjective I play in the exact same situations and I’m not bored and contributing a lot to what is going on still. Define specifically what you are or are not doing or are not capable of doing that is boring you. I bet you it has something to do with “direct damage” and not doing it… this is not the class for that nor has it ever been really it became the “flavour of the month” because of a few OP things in pvp and some people adopted the class only because of that.
There are a lot of things that can be done that do not involve direct damage(offensively and defensively) and even then we can still damage people on walls to an extent, smack on the gate or man siege. If you can’t do any of that you’re doing it wrong. I’m asuming you’re primarily referring to “towers” because in keeps/castle offensives/defenses we’re indispensable let your presence known that you’re a mesmer and there people will help you do what you need to if you’re clueless.
Despite your condescending tone, I believe that is exactly what is being talked about. The other scholar classes in particular seem quite adept at pew-pewing the walls. Even if it’s not your definition of a good time, or the best use of time, for a lot of folks that’s what they want to do. Usefulness shouldn’t sit only in the hands of a few powerful cooldowns, people want to use their weapons and be active.
I do agree the blocks feel cumbersome and unwieldy. However, I do use Scepter as my secondary MH weapon almost exclusively in WvW, clunky mechanics and all. I use confusion as my finisher / burst. I’m not sure if that says I’m just stupid or the weapon isn’t all that bad.
What is this?
Someone on the dev team please, for the love of mmo logic, explain this to us:
Why are zergs of insane numbers being seen like this? Why is this being allowed?
A zerg isn’t skill… it’s murder, slaughter, not pvp/skill.
When all you are doing is dying, rezing back at the only point that can be rez’ed to and then dying again, can you see where this would not be fun?
I would try finding a castle to hide in. I hear there are some of those about.
Or unless you’ve encountered a slew of people that don’t follow the rules of physics, they can’t be two places at once. I like to just go where they’re not.
Lastly, using numbers is an ABSOLUTELY viable tactical strategy. It doesn’t make you any less capable if you choose to move in a pack to increase your chances of surviving and success. It’s up to you as a player to determine and execute an appropriate counter strategy, which as far as I can tell, isn’t stamping your foot down and crying, “this isn’t fair!”
Great, thanks! I’ve liked the staff a lot as well, just find the auto attack to be a little slow (better than scepter though w/ the bouncy boons). The rest of the skills are really great though – AOE conditions+protection, chaos bubble and the get out of jail free phase retreat. I’ll throw it into my second slot and give it another run tonight!
Thanks for the trait tips too. What are your go-to utilities? I picked decoy first for an all purpose oh-kitten button, but I’d be interested to hear about other top choices for early leveling (not necessarily the end game shatter-builds, read those guides).
Also, what about heal-slot? I’m a not-quite-elf-vegetable (a.k.a Sylvari) and the healing seed almost looks like BIS, but maybe I’m missing something. Otherwise Mes heals seem pretty weak.
For utilities, I usually leveled with Mirror Images, Null Field, and Signet of Illusions. I currently use Blink, Null Field, and swap between Decoy or Signet of Inspiration, depending on how I’m feeling or what I’m doing.
I really like Null Field, as it clears boons on enemies, clears conditions on you, and gives you a second combo field to keep Chaos Armor on you.
For a heal, I pretty well exclusively run Ether Feast. Just make sure you have your clones up before you use it, unless you’re within an inch of your life
I found GS + Staff to be my personal comfort zone while leveling. GS does great, but as you’ve already noticed, it’s amazing how little dmg it does when a mob is in your face. As it’s somewhat difficult to keep mobs off you, I found the ‘tankiness’ of the staff to be the best choice as a second weapon.
My general rotation is [GS] autoattack (to ensure los) > Mirror > Zerker. Zerker helps a lot as he will often draw aggro, else he at least cripples. I then switch to staff > Warlock > Phase Retreat > autoattack till a shatter will kill the mob.
For Traits, imo the first 5 go into illusions no matter what. After that I did Dueling for Deceptive Evasion & the other very useful passives; then I started up Chaos for some survival.
This is just what I found works for me, I’m sure some hate this style. It’s probably a little slower killing than other weapons, but I can take a beating pretty well and still kill fast enough.
I’m sorry, but this post is ridiculous.
I’m sure you had good intentions writing it, but it just makes you come across as not all that bright. I’m sure you really are a smart guy, I’m just saying this doesn’t show it.
You can’t leave a server you were an active commander of and then say they lacked commanders. You can’t call a server inept and dangerous in the same sentence. You admit you like being a bully. And while it’s not said, I can’t help but feel you’re colluding to ensure BP will achieve the next tier. An ill-thought out “air clearing” post isn’t the best way to defend your actions, smooth over feelings, or whatever point you were trying to achieve.
Having said that, good luck and enjoy BP!
What you have to do is give an honest evaluation.
Given all the positive things that you have stated is going on with BP. If you did not have a numbers advantage over the two other servers, would you still be winning?
If everything else stayed the same and you had a less players than AR and GoM, would you win?
An honest answer is no, you would no.
You can’t act like the rules change in this tier, Numbers win in every other bracket,Except this one? Check every tier above and below us, the winning server can field more players than the other two.
The game mechanics don’t change for BP. Over the course of a 24 hour 7 day match, you can field more players. That wins the match.
-K
This man speaks the truth.
This isn’t to say that strategy and skill don’t play a role in the outcome, of course they do. But it can only do so much when the numbers game is skewed.
My issue is — why bother caring about it? If you won because you have a larger population of interested and active W3 players — good for you. Or if you won because you have an army of Gen. Patton’s running around — good for you. You win either way, and it’s up to the other servers to either get better or keep losing.
Show me a spec just as effective as backstab for my thief and I’ll use it.
You just admitted backstab is borked. If it’s so “effective” that no other spec comes close, it’s broken.
Mesmer phantasms work like regular attacks. There is not really a logical reason for them to ignore dodging. The ‘double-standard’ examples are apples to oranges — for example, if an opponent dodges when you cast Chaos Storm, the field is still on the ground.
Except that if you actually play the class, or take just a minute to examine what the class is supposed to be, you’d understand that phantasms were apparently designed not to be just a regular attack.
Mesmer “regular” attacks are weak. Very weak. Sword 2 is the ONLY exception to this. And for what it is, I’d argue it’s still a primarily defensive ability, but it works well both ways.
Phantasms ARE our damage. We can circumvent this with particular specs, but so can every other class. And this creates pigeon-holing our class into very specific builds.
Phantasms are, in my mind, supposed to be a hybrid of ability and pet, along with creating synergy with the class mechanic, shatter. Which means they need some sort of reliability in trade for being so disposable. I don’t mind if, according to your train of thought, they become “regular attacks” alone. But if that’s the case, then they should be immune to damage and have a finite duration. If you give me those two, then sure, blind / dodge/ whatever my phantasms to your heart’s delight.
edit I forgot, in addition our AE phantasms need to be ground-target instead of enemy target.
(edited by Mister Mustard.7203)
The tool tip is wrong. It reduces the recharge on the phantasms attack, not the recharge of the skill that summons them.
the tool tip is correct. The wording can mean both, and most players tend to read the different meaning. And adding grammar signs doesn’t help the american nation. Thy tan 2 reed th1s.
Tooltip:
Phantasms recharge 20% faster.
Illusionists Celerity’s tooltip:
Illusion-summoning skills recharge 20% faster.I mean, you don’t misunderstand
Persisting Images tooltip:
Phantasms have 20% more health.
Like it increases the mesmers spell health.
But the fact is “recharge” is vague. I don’t need to spend time trying to decipher what a tooltip means, when a simple re-wording would make things clear. Like: “Phantasms attack 20% faster.”
Just did a very unofficial count in my head, and both Zerker and Duelist are attacking faster with Haste than without. This was in the world, didn’t try pvp or wvw.
Maybe I’m wrong as I don’t have much experience playing the other classes, but it seems to me mesmers are distinctly behind in the capability to produce constant and effective AE damage. Which seems quite helpful to cast up on those walls. Or anywhere else you want someone to choose between standing somewhere and taking damage.
The phantasms also make an opponent choose: Take damage or lose target on the mesmer. But in the situation you’re complaining about, that choice really isn’t relevant. You’re probably not actively trying to kill that one mesmer before he kills you, so you should simply switch to the phantasm and kill it.
Given the entirety of the mesmer toolkit, I think iZerker’s LoS functionality is both balanced and intentional. There are other gimmicky abilities I would address first.