Guild Wars 2

I spent a while trying to reproduce crazy high warlock hits on the target golems with various builds. Didn’t get anywhere close to 12.8k with a pure phantasm build. I did see a swordsman crit the light armor golem for 7k but there was a bunch of vulnerability stacks on it, and 6k crit was more usual.

As far as I can tell the damage is basically the same as before the patch.

In SoloQ I’m trying a 0/6/6/2/0 clone death / mantra spam build with Balthazar runes, and it seems to do alright. Very durable with tonnes of condi removal (I use MoR too).

Xavi.6591:

Mesmers are in a lackluster spot right now.
Shatter is more or less dead due to ferocity nerfs

Perhaps that’s true to some extent in wvw but that’s definitely not true in spvp where shatter still has significant on demand burst.

I wish GW1 was more popular. I’d love to play my mesmer or my monk in TA

Carighan.6758:

Caelus.7139:

There wouldn’t be any here, or less in extent, IF THEY ACTUALLY FIXED THE BUGS THEY SAID THEY WERE GONNA FIX.

Do people still believe this?

MMO-forums are always:

• Full of complaints.
• Hostile.
• Accusing the devs of being incompetent.
• Accusing the devs of playing personal favours.
• Talking about how much less of the above there would be if only the devs would for once listen to the obviously much-better-developers players.

Since this happens in any MMO, it’s probably safe to assume that this is an inherent “feature” of the community drawn to such games, and can be ~safely ignored.

I worked in console games for 10 years. It was fun and I was convinced I was a good programmer. It was only after leaving games I realized how little I knew about testing and large scale software design.

There will always be bugs, but the frequent regressions seen in many MMOs simply arnt necessary. This is entirely due to the development culture in most games studios. The main anti-patterns I’ve seen are:

1. No code reviews
2. No (or inadiquate) unit or integration testing, even if you wanted it there would be no management buy in.
3. No Presubmit checks
4. No proper planning (every major feature ought to have a design doc and a design review)
5. Massive overreliance on minimum wage manual testers
6. In some studios the engineering department can’t push back on obviously bad design decisions.
7. Low status job with bad hours and poor pay in comparison to what you can get elsewhere for doing an easier programming job

I wouldn’t characterise game devs as incompetent, rather over worked and naieve. This includes my younger self and many friends who were in the industry at the time.

Neptune.2570:

PU condi is one of the best dueling builds, but offers very little to your team in ranked matches, I’d go with a lockdown shatter.

Please remember the OP is asking about SoloQ not TeamQ. I wouldn’t run PU builds in TeamQ either but it does work in SoloQ. PU obviously doesnt have the burst damage power shatter does but it does do reasonable damage and survivability is great. Pyro has much more to say on the matter here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-A-Mesmer-Guide-to-Solo-Queue

The strongest build is still condi PU. I personally prefer traditional power shatter and 4/4/6 lockdown, but they are not as strong.

Perhaps the mesmer in question had the new torment shatter? That would explain the condition spam. Mind you the OP didn’t mention shatters so it might be something else…

Skins? Meh. I care about the mechanics not the fluff

I personally think its embarrassing they have so many bugs, but I guess I’m not surprised. I suspect fixing iLeap properly would require a new nav mesh system. Is such a thing possible? Yes for sure. Will it happen? No. You can’t justify redoing all the nav meshes and fixing all the issues that will cause just to sort out iLeap.

TBH, in soloQ I’d rate traditional shatter as one of the stronger mesmer builds post patch. The burst if anything is slightly better due to the sigil changes. Besides there’s tonnes of PvE nubs in zerker gear who have no clue what they are doing who you’ll eat alive.

Haha. Anyway if any devs are reading I strongly recommend using this, a lot: https://code.google.com/p/googletest/ (I assume the server code is c++, if its Java JUnit4 + mockito is rather nice)

And code reviews, and a continuous build (that won’t let you submit stuff that breaks tests). There’s really absolutely no need for weird unintended side effects like these to have occurred.

Hi Josh, is power block supposed to be putting auto attacks on cool down? Also is it supposed to interrupt bosses with defiant stacks? My inner GW1 mesmer wants to believe

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Is-power-block-putting-aa-s-on-cd/first#post3909641

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Testing-Power-Block-behaviour-on-Bosses/first#post3907891

EFWinters.5421:

Mek.2947:

What’s wrong with it?

Every clone and illusion has a separate cooldown on the fear.

Speaking as a mesmer player, that seems a little over the top!

OP please provide links to these claims. I can well belive there are imbalanced builds but I’d like to see some evidence which could be presented to the devs if something truly is out if wack. Currently this feedback is pure hearsay.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Justin O’ Dell plays Mesmer so I pm’ed him since he is awesome He even plays lockdown mes <3

Could you ask him if power block is intended to work vs auto attacks and boss attacks? My inner GW1 mesmer would love love love for it to be intended, but it seems unlikely…

PowerBlock is sure to get changed, although it would be awesome if that took 6 months

Well the clones have to hit to apply the torment, and you can just run away from them…

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

I was using 20/20/0/0/30 glasscannon shatter spec earlier today, feels the same as it did yesterday and the day before I guess ^^

I was playing this in sPvP last night, and while I did notice the critical infusion nerf, I had no problem getting kills. If anything the rune and sigil changes have strengthened the build slightly. (I was running dual energy, dual fire sigils with infiltrators runes. The fire sigils proc practically every shatter combo and the % damage vs players under 50% HP seems nice on paper)

I always consider forcing somebody to run off or die a moral victory.

Jekkt.6045:

1. - other dps classes need small buffs to make them equal, power necro, sd engi. thieves are more mobile and more “slippery” but thats class design. i dont see why this should get nerfed.

What’s easier, making a lot of small tweaks to many classes, or making adjustments to one class?

Jekkt.6045:

1. thief cooldown is initiative. if you interrupt a skill thieves loose the initiative. c&d = 5 sec of wasted initiative. interrupting a d/p thief at the right moment can be way more punishing than interrupting whatever other class.

Depending on spec thieves regain initiative at different rates, how can you properly balance that? There’s too many variables.

(Perceived) problem:

1. Thieves displace other dps classes from the meta (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/sPvP-Thieves-driving-away-damage-dealers)
2. Thief mechanics currently reward fairly mindless game play on behalf of the thief and punish good counter play from everyone else (#3 spam). In particular interrupts are much less rewarding vs thieves than any other class in GW2 or GW1 for that matter. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-Interrupts-Maybe-a-bit-broken/first)
3. Because there’s no cool down on thief attacks, they can spam attacks while stealthed till they bypass ageis etc… (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Blocking-stealth-attacks-should-apply-reveal)

Proposed Solution:
Add a cool down to every thief skill (there’s precedence for this in every other class, plus assassins from GW1). It’s OK for skills that are intended to be spammed to have really short cool downs (perhaps as low as 2s).

Expected results:
1. Interrupts are more rewarding vs theifs, with interrupted skills going on at least kitten cooldown.
2. Attack spam while stealthed vs blocks is toned down. It’s still possible but mindless key mashing is now punished
3. It’s easier for anet to individually balance powerful skills than it is via initiative costs alone. E.g. they could have preserved pistol whip as it was, but added a 10s cool down so it couldn’t be spammed and it had to be used intelligently.
4. There’s less weird exceptions to general game mechanics (interrupts work the same way vs every class) making the game easier to balance as a result)
5. Mesmers and hopefully Eles will be seen more in sPvP. Thieves should remain viable since they have a lot going for them.
6. Chill works properly vs thieves.

He hkittentered concentration in the build linked in the OP.

I’m sure that would work ok, but personally I dislike DE in a phantasm build.

If you don’t mind loosing the boon stripping this build makes the phantasm’kitten like a mac truck. You defiantly can kill thieves with it too (traited dualists are lovely)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAR8alknpRtlpxDNcrRScmB0jO6DYnUBVXSBuzNA-ToAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNiY1B

Next patch, I wonder if going 20 in illusions for phantasmal haste over empowered illusions would be a good idea. In theory a 20% lower recyle timer on phantasm attack skills should out damage a raw 15% boost, assuming they live long enough.

I’ve never tried auto cast on mantras before until now, and uh it was annoying! Blocking you from doing something else that was more important… How does that not drive you nuts?

I’d suggest going OH pistol or torch. The iDualist has a channelled attack which is good vs thieves. The prestige is also really nice for setting up shatter combos, since iLeap is a cue for most players to dodge.

Perhaps a UI change would help, shading the portion of your health bar that would be depleted if the conditions run their course?

Conditional damage from torment and confusion make this a little harder to implement than it otherwise might be, but it could just project the damage done if the player carries on doing what they are doing.

I’ve been running this in soloq of late, it seems irritatingly effective. I say irritating because I normally play shatter and this seem more effective a lot of the time and it’s pretty much all AI.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAR8alknpDtNqxMNcrRScmB0jO6DYnUBVXSBuzNA-ToAg0E4owxhjBHJOWcGWssY3B

Saying there’s 0 difference between starter with and without DE is plain wrong in my experience. Reason being clones die quickly vs melee cleave so if your clone creation is spaced out its hard to land a spike when you want to. The synergy between sword 2 and DE allows you to summon 2 clones in a very short timeframe on demand, which IMO is vital in a shatter build.

Could you please name an OP build enabled by either lower DE or IP?

PS I agree DE should not exist.

I expect the concern is an adept DE would make PU or clone death builds even stronger.

A shatterlock 30/10/0/0/30 build would be rather nice and may get some QQ but the skill cap is way higher than PU so I expect the actual impact would be limited.

I believe the idea is to give mesmers something innate to compensate for the loss of DE. Depending on what it was this something I could would support.

Would the temporary clones be shatterable? Typically they’d only need to last 2-3s to be useful for that.

Carighan.6758:

I still think that DE has to go.

It seems too required a trait for anyone who isn’t doing Phantasms.

I’d rather see an improved base ability to spawn clones + a dodge-trait which is less strictly required.

Yes. I dislike the fact it’s needed, but it seems too much of a stretch for them to remove it at this stage of the game’s life.

I have tried quite a lot of builds without DE, and for lockdown or phantasm builds you can kind of get away without it. Shatter builds really need DE because clones are fragile and there’s often quite a lot of random aoe.

I wasn’t aware of the early balance changes, I guess that makes it very unlikely the sort of tinkering I suggested will be done.

Aim: Promote shatter build diversity.

Method: Either make illusionary persona a master talent or deceptive evasion an adept talent.

Expected outcome: Shatter builds can take GM traits from other lines while reataining DE and IP. This would allow better shatter + lockdown or shatter + boon creation or shatter + sustain builds.

This would hopefully make shatter more viable in sPvP and small scale WvW. It would have no effect on lvl 80 PvE and limited effect on zerg combat. Deceptive evasion as an adept talent would make the sub 40 leveling expierence more palatable.

Thoughts?

I’m usually a shatter build and beyond veil / feedback / portal I feel pretty useless in blob vs blob combat. Obvious I avoid the melee train but even among the enemy squishies I find it really hard to set up an effective shatter combo due to random aoes and stability.

Guardian staff 1 makes me jealous

IGN: Neurophen.9738
Server: Far Shiverpeaks
Role: Scholar
Playtime: ~10pm – 2am GMT

Interests: WvW & sPvP, would be cool to hang out with some of the mesmer hive mind.

Judging by the traceroute I just did from London to that IP, the GW2 servers are defiantly in Europe.

I’m seeing 35 ms ping time to 206-127-157-102.plaync.com (that’s the last hop before 206.127.159.159)

You’d be talking more like 90+ ms if it went transatlantic.

Ha air pet spam!

I appreciate the intent behind the OPs suggestions, I personally find heavy phantasm builds kind of boring (too passive). Mesmer does have other more active builds that I find fun: shatter and lock down.

One problem I see is the layout of traits limits build diversity. This is particularly true for shatter builds since you pretty much have to have both deceptive evasion, illusionary persona, and typically mental torment as well. There’s a bunch of interesting shatter traits deep in the inspiration tree but I doubt anyone uses them. I wouldn’t mind giving up a bit to have my shatters remove conditions or heal, but currently you have to give up way too much.

I see you have mental torment, but I find F1 a bit underwhelming unless you have 30 in illusions, and halting strike is kind of nice in an interrupt build.

Vid inspired me to try out scepter / torch and sword / pistol and I like it. The extra torch stealth (+ burning) makes it easier to set up shatter combos vs players who dodge. Having pistol and the sword #2 and scepter #2 on a swap seems to make life a little easier vs x/dagger thieves (usually I’d run gs or staff plus sword/x).

Phantasm builds (typically what you level with) involve a lot of passive play and are quite boring. Sub 40 memser was pretty unfun to level (not quite as bad as older MMOs but getting there), it got better post 60.

Fortunately Mesmer has a number of high skill cap builds at lvl 80 for wvw/pvp, e.g. shatter and lockdown which require good positioning, reflexes and game knowledge.

IAMAEGP (I am an ex-graphics engine programmer)

Tinting a texture in a pixel shader is trivial, and has been viable since XBox1 days (where I used this technique, albeit at the cost of some fillrate)

final_colour.rgb = tint.rgb * (src.rgb dot (0.2126, 0.7152, 0.0722)) + src.rgb * tint.a

where tint.rgb is pre-multipled by (1-tint.a)

I very much doubt that would slow down appreciably any semi-modern graphics card (the bottlenecks will be texture, index and vertex memory access not deeply pipelined pixel shader math).

So why not do it? Well there’s a lot of plumbing:

1. The pixel shader needs to know what tint to apply, depending on how their particle system works this may be done via pixel shader constants (cheap but you’d need to bucket your drawIndexPrimitive calls on tint colour), or via vertex shader interpolants
2. Upstream of the pixel / vertex shaders the graphics engine entity representing a particle effect would need a new tint property
3. Depending on how particle effects are spawned, the client side representation for players may need a new property (so the right tint can be used for that player’s particle effects). Alternatively if the particles are spawned server side then the wire format used by the server to tell a client to spawn an effect needs a new property
4. Unless they have a bag of key-value pairs the database schema representing a player’s state needs extending to store this new property
5. Presumably the setting for the tinting would need a new page in the client’s UI with new artwork and translations of any text introduced
6. A new property would have to be added to the wire format used by the client to tell the server about armor tinting options
7. All this would need extensive (and expensive) testing

From an engineering point of view nothing there is terribly hard, but doing it right is a whole bunch of work and for what? Warlocks muuust have green fire, oops sorry wrong game.

You’ll be wanting boon removal for group fights. I suggest the standard shatter build 20/20/0/0/30 taking I & VII in domination, IV & X in dueling and III, VIII and XI in illusions.

Traveller runes are great but IMO they are more of a solo thing. If your in a regular group I’d suggest buying a second set of exotic zerker armour with divinity runes, and full zerker trinkets. EoTM made getting badges really easy so its quite cheap to get a second exotic armour set.

I noticed something interesting today, somebody’s placed moderate size buy orders (~160) for 4s for pretty much every type of major rune. For some of the runes this nearly 75c more then the next highest bid.

I’m curious as to why somebody might do that, does anyone have any theories? My theory is that perhaps the market is small enough that this could result in price rises across the board and whoever placed those buy orders is hoping that all those buy orders will never actually fulfilled (because somebody else will eventually bid 1c higher) and they’ll be able to sell a bunch of runes at a higher price than normal.