Guild Wars 2

Why do not you organize the ‘best in class’ tournament and let ppl 1v1. At least you will see who is the best among those who participated.

4. People who claim that they are ‘helpless’ without 2 sec invulnerability on BF. Let me help you with your rotation since you make me sad (far from being good rotation since I never played mesmer in my life and it took me about 2 min to think of this one):
1. You start with duelist when you see the enemy. Duelist is now putting pressure on melee to close in.
time 0s: Just before he closes in use BF, that is what you open with. Takes 0.5s to cast and then you ahve 2sec of invul.
time 2.5s: hit him with magic bullet. Takes 0.5s to cast and then you have him stunned for 2 sec. Then proceed to DSP with autoattack.
Time 4s (enemy stunned for 1more sec): cast your clone that leaps (0.75s cast time enemy stunned he should hit).
Time 5s (just before so enemy is still stunned): Swap so you immobilize him for 2sec. He should now be immobilized from sec 5 to sec 7.
5s-7s: Proceed to dps with autoattack or you can dodge to make a third clone and shatter. (or combination of the two).
7s-8s: get some distance from the guy and dodge if necessary.
8s: as he chases you pop BF again. (this should keep you invul till 10s).
10s: Swap to staff and phase retreat (instant, generate clone that is annoying range attacker and teleport away).
10s+ – 11s: Cast warlock.
Proceed to kite the enemy (you can dodge once to create one more clone for annoying enemy). If he closes in cast chaos storm to force him to back out. You can also use daze or invul shatter as you see fit. Chaos storm and initial distance you have should keep him away from you till second 18, at which point you can ‘phase retreat’ again. (yes yes blink away again).
20s: switch back to sword. Cast the leap guy.
21s: as leap guy closes on your target, swap for immobilize of 2s. Here you can BF again while the guy is immobilized but let us not do that, dodge away and shatter him again with clones then come back to start BF
23s: BF.
25.5 – 27.5: Back off a bit (BF finished) and cast duelist. You can dodge if you really need to.
27.5s: Stun (Magic bullet). He will be stunned between 28s-30s.
28s: autoattack for a sec till 29s. Then BF for more dmg and invul till sec 31.
31s: switch to staff and again to the teleport thing and kite (use chaos shield instead of chaos storm in this rotation and you will go back to chaos storm the next one)…..etc etc.

You guys have no tools?? Really??
Makes me laugh at how bad of a player you need to be to claim that you need more tools.
Look at the first 10s: you are pressuring with duelist who is doing singificant dmg. You are invulnerable at 0.5s-2.5s and 8s-10s. You have him stunned 3s-5s. And you have him immobilized 5s-7s. On top of that you are shattering him.
When is he supposed to do some dmg to you?
When you switch to staff you get immediate teleport (2 of them during those 10s-20s period if you trait). You get annoying ranged + condition dealing illusions. And if the guy manages to close in, guess what you get field AND shield that forces him to back off (least he keeps getting dazed/interrupted).
Then sec 20-30 and 30-40 are pretty much the same just a bit shuffled rotation to account for cooldown times.
Really people, you make me laugh.

Yes, one can say ‘use your utilities to break stun/immobilize (etc)’ and get a second or two oportunity to hit mesmer (or dodge). Problem with such argument is this:
Those cc breakers are on longer cooldowns than cooldowns of your skills that apply them.
Dodge if a matter of skill, I should be rewarded for the skill, not need skill to simply put me on equal footing with mesmer.
An example: Let us say mesmer made his leaping clone (assume two more illusions are there for shatter) and is going for a kill, he wants to swap (immobilize me), follow it by stun and then BF+shatter. If I sense this coming, and then dodge his swap and his stun and he goes into BF which I dodge through again and find myself behind his back, I should be rewarded for this and be able to for example C&D+ backstab him while he is standing there BF-ing. He should not pull off such a spike, completely miss it and then be completely forgiven….that is the point. Balance starts with these micro-sequences. If you get outplayed you should get punished, with mesmer you are forgiven so much more than you should be.
Note that he can attempt such spike without stun (just immobilize) every 10s, and one with stun every 25s.

And no I do not get stomped by anyone (this or some other class) despite all of this….at least I do not know a player who can just come and easily beat me. Not every comment about balance on these forums is due to person not being able to kill your class.

Few points:
1. BF is on 8 sec cooldown when traited, not 10.

2. There was a stupid statement equating stealth and invulnerability: They are NOT the same. You do not get invulnerability by stealthing, you still get very much hit by aoe, channeled attacks, and random attack people throw around. Keep in mind that when you are in stealth you cannot dps people while they can dps you. That is completely opposite of what you have in BF.

3. It is funny to see how poeple resort to lies when unable to discuss facts: Supposedly ‘experienced’ mesmers claim they can use BF only once every 20 seconds. That is a lie. BF sould be a cornerstone of your rotation and it should go like this:
You pop BF at second 0, then you pop it at second 8, then you switch to staff at 10s, then you switch back to sword/pistol at 20s and pop BF again, then you pop BF at second 28.
There, I just used BF 4 times in 30 seconds. That is BF every 7.5 seconds.
So it is really you who has L2P issue if you do not know that with 650+ games played on your mesmer.
Note, that is 8 seconds of invul out of 30. Note that with the need to back away from BF a bit earlier and the time you need to come back (call it 0.5 sec each way) that 8 seconds turns into 12sec (you have to do it 4 times). So against melee, mesmer, with SINGLE SKILL gets about 12 seconds out of 30sec of no dmg whatsoever (yes, that is 40% of time).

continued the next post

it is not ok that skill even auto-faces at the beginning of the cast. If a player is not able to make sure he faces the target when he presses the skill button he should not be guaranteed to hit.
It dumbs down the play and others do not get such benefits.

Yukishiro, I doubt that 2sec invulnerability (every 8 seconds) on BF is necessary for viable mesmer in pvp. Whoever claims that has L2P issues.
Other classes do not get to be invulnerable 25%+ of game time based on single skill to be viable. (exception is s/p thief who traits that way and that should be fixed as well).

Let us look at what you have in sword/pistol set:
1. you have 2second stun every 25 sec.
2. you have duelist which does very decent dmg. (and u can bump his and other illusion’s HP 200% thanks to the bug).
3. you have BF every 8 sec (with above described features).
4. you have gap closer in ur clone and then immobilze for 2 sec.
5. You have dmg shatter every 10 sec or so (mind wreck).

So using 4 -> 3 -> 5 you are able to delivery super damage spike while being completely invulnerable for 2 seconds (during spike) and you do that on 10 seconds CD. you can also mix in 2 sec stun into the combo every 25 sec.

Alternatively you can deliver 4 – 3 and leave shatter as a defensive option once your invul expires, where you force enemy with your shatter to back off again and waste few seconds window where he can actually do some damage to you before you rinse/repeat.

6. you have about 4 sec of additional invul due to another shatter. (distortion). This 4 sec is on 42 sec cooldown or so (I assume you trait properly).

7. you have long daze (shatter) every 30 sec.

8. confusion also great especially in team fights.

9. You have staff which is also very good weapon. (do I need to tell you what you have there? back off shiled, then back off field, and then teleport away and clones who keep applying annoying conditions on the enemy from range while u kite)

So do not pretend as if you have no other tools to justify this obscenity of a skill. Even if you did not, you should be given such tools and this obscene skill moderated. But you actually do have other tools, this invul of 2 sec on 8 sec timer is unnecessary for skilled players.

How about this seeinder:
It is not about evating the attack. It is about the mesmer being invulnerable to counterattack once you evade it.
You are not technically rooted, you can interrupt it if you miss. So he is not forced to stand there. But if I dodge his attack and find myself behind his back, i should be able to hit him if he does not move. He should not sit there invulnerable for 2 sec every 8 seconds.
You need to reread what the issue is. Avoiding 2-3 sec frenzy is easy. Doing so every 8 seconds and mesmer being invulnerable basically 30-40% of game time due to single skill is stupid.

Disagree strongly….
There are two cases:
1. Haste + CC (where by CC i mean stun/knockdown or Immobilize)
and
2. Haste only and you are not CC-ed

For case 2: Haste animation is clear…dodge away or pop invul (skill or util), ‘blink’ away. All those should be on lower cooldown than thief or warrior hastes (which are about 60sec cooldowns and carry significant defensive penalities). Hastes last 3-4 sec, it is a long long time, you can react easily within first 0.5sec.

For case 1: If you are CC-ed you need to have CC breaker (stun/immobilize breakers). If you did not bring them into fight then better dodge CC or avoid it in some other manner. If you get hit with it and did not bring CC breaker, you deserve to die. It is cheaper to bring CC breaker (1 utility) than to attempt CC+haste combos (2 utilities). So by bringing CC breaking utility into the fight and using it appropriately, you actually win over those who waste 2 utilities for the chance to 1-shot bad players every 60 seconds. It is easy to react to stun within fraction of a second you just need to have tools.
People simply do not bring necessary tools to the fight, want to maximize the dmg, and then complain about other glass cannon killing them in 2sec.

One more thing to add: Against melee build, this 25% invul as % of game time is even higher. You have to back off a bit before he start using the skill (you will not be ideal) and after he finishes it will take you some time to come back. Let us say it takes you 0.5 sec on each end, that essentially gives mesmer 40%+ of game time invul (3.5sec out of 8sec) against melee builds unwilling to stand there and take the dmg from BF (and shatter too…yeah).

Bump to this. I was already thinking making a post about this skill, pistol whip versus flurry/HB. (I am a thief not a warrior)
Also, this is not a whine, since I have no problem fighting mesmers, I do not need them nerfed to win.

Now, it is very simple to see how ridiculous this skill is: This SINGLE SKILL gives invulnerability 25% of game time (2 sec invul on 8 sec timer). That is on top of high dmg output (and other issues like autoturning after me as I circle them to hit them from the back). Give me anything that comes close to it (just in terms of invulnerability, forget the rest)!

What is more, this is not 25seconds of invulnerability on 100sec timer, where you have 75 sec to kill the mesmer. Rather, balance of duration and cooldown is pretty much perfect. 2 sec is ideal to negate bursts and it is on 8 second timer.

Normal invul utilities give invulnerability about 4%-5% of game time (think mist form or endure pain). Also many of this when popped prevent you from taking offensive actions (shield block). BF (and PW too) is simply so out of line with the invulnerability it is not even up for discussion.

They need invulnerability removed or cut down to something that will bring invulnerability state as % of game time to reasonable level (0.5 sec maximum).

Seether, I guess calling people noobs for using mobility as defensive mechanic is not “telling people how to play or not play their characters”?

It is ok to run….whenever you feel like you should do it…do not let people tell you how to enjoy your character, play it the way you want.
Most of those people calling themselves pros and trying to tell others how to play their character are jokes anyway. 1v1 them, and you will see.

I think that the discussion about what should replace ‘last refuge’ should be left for some other topic.

Bump…you can see similar suggestion on the following topic along with the explanation why ‘last refuge’ is a bad one in the case of some thief builds:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Ability-to-not-use-a-minor-trait/first#post930070

Why do not they give us 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 ques?
And why do they not allow for single match-ups instead of tourneys? (5v5 and lower)
Both would improve very significantly user enjoyment.

This is supposed to be a game, not work. I do not want ANY obligation when I play games. I want to be able to jump in and out of the game whenever it pleases me without affecting other people’s playing experience in a negative manner. I do not want to be tied for 30 minutes to complete a tourney because team is going to be forced to play with 4 if I leave.
I also dislike to wait for other people to enjoy the game.

Most of all, I like to solo more than to play team games. This is not because I dislike team play but rather because making a good team involves lots of WORK. There are so many class synergies and map strategies to be explored. You have to find serious people who know how to play. And then even when you do all that work you come back to having OBLIGATION to be there, practice, play with them etc. I want none of that crap.

This simply makes no sense. I like the game, but game experience is significantly worse due to absence of mentioned features.

…and bump to this……I hope it is allowed. I simply think adding this feature is very simple (it merely requires you not to auto-populate minor traits on trait reset (as you already do for Major ones)), while it will save players and developers lots of headaches in the future.

Can you please add Polling feature to the forum?
Make it simple (5 options from strongly disagree to strongly agree), and allow one vote per account.

That way you can see community opinion on many issues that may be critical to the direction of the game.
We could right away see what people think about:
Single match 5v5 que (instead of this tourney nonsense).
1v1, 2v2, 3v3 matches.
Importance of rankings, and how to do it (separate or joint 1v1, 5v5,… etc rankings).

yup…OP should roll a warrior or a ranger and never mention this bad idea again.
If you like lots of evasion/survivability non-stealth class, roll a ranger, use melee weapons and spec him to be survivable.

Marcus.2643: Could you explain the problem with the trait-build? Thanks o.o

Answer: It is simple, if you are mid-action (call it action_A) which puts you outside of stealth and ‘last refuge’ triggers and puts you in the stealth during performance of action_A then you get ‘revealed’ debuf which prevents you going into stealth again. It is simply catastrophic for certain builds.

People already mentioned issue with it popping mid C&D.

Now, my build is even more sensitive to it since ‘last refuge’ has much larger time window in which it can ‘trigger’ and mess things up.

Imagine you are d/p build and you do ‘blinding powder’ plus HS combo for stealth while fighting 5 or more people alone. You will often que those two skills quickly one after another. If the ‘last refuge triggers’ in the middle of of ‘blinding powder’ you will go into stealth just to be revealed when your shot hits someone fraction of a second later and you will carry a revealed debuff now making you unable to stealth. If it triggers before or during HS same will happen, you go into stealth just to come out of stealth at the end of HS when you hit your target.

It is extremely annoying because it happens at the worst possible moment (when you are low on health) and can easily lead to death when one fights zergs alone. I can tell you that this trait probably accounts for 80%+ of my deaths.

In the case of my builds, this trait is like having a high chance (over 50%) to
1. LOSE 9 initiative points
AND
2. stealth to randomly fail
AND
3. get revealed debuff
at the worst possible moment (when you are at 25% health and being actively DPS-ed).
How is that a good idea?

So developers should let us simply disable the trait and put one big nothing in its place until they put something more reasonable there. Such option would solve similar issues in the future. While people are explaining what is the problem with ‘minor trait X’ and developers are taking the time to understand the issue and fix it, people can simply decide to remove it from the build and have one big ‘non-harmful’ nothing in its place.

Last Refuge is a big big big issue for some builds but that should be discussed in other places.
This is purely a request for them to allow us to deselect minor trait and have nothing in its place. It is a good idea because it is general mitigation for future issues like this.
It may take them months to realize just how bad idea is to force ‘last refuge’ as a non-choice trait.

You can do that with MAJOR but NOT with MINOR trait.

Hello, can the developers please give us the ability to deselect certain minor trait and use nothing in its place?

There are certain minor traits that are extremely harmful for certain ways of playing the thief. For me it is the Last Refuge. I would say that this trait is the primary reason I die recently. (I can explain the mechanics if necessary)

I assume that this will eventually be fixed and such a trait will be eventually substituted in minor spot with something else that is universally ‘useful’ (or at least ‘non-harmful), while ’Last Refuge’ trait will be moved to be selectable as major trait. However, I assume this will take a long time (for developers to process how bad this thing can be and decide it is not appropriate to force it on people).

So it would be very useful to have ability to deselect such a trait so we are not actively harmed n the meantime (while all the developers decision making is going on).

Thanks….

Some people optimize/practice for pvp and see pve just as a minor distraction. They probably run dungeons because they want ‘up-to-date’ equipment, not because they like running dungeons and want to excel in that department.

Go to thief traits and read about ‘signets of power’ trait in critical strikes line.
those three signets, when activated will give them 15 stacks of might + 15% dmg for their spike combo (mug + c&d + backstab + heartseeker).
So effectively it is about 525 extra power and +15% dmg on top of it.