Guild Wars 2

This log also take into account the damage taken while down, he could have very well taken 3-4 stack of burning in downstate…

Mesmer was always a class with one of the strongest burst inh the game, yet pre patch it was harder to land and mesmer was thus a niche class that few people bothered with. They expected very good players to rekt them but nothing more.
With the patch there has been power creeps all around, added to the possibility of traiting PU or even the inspiration line for better survivability without impacting the dps. This made the class much more viable et remarkable, giving more time to plan your burst, making it easier to land and giving access du sustain the class didn’t have previously. Because of the new hyper dps meta, mistakes are still heavily punished, yet average players are now considered good because the class became slightly easier to play. People hate mesmer because it’s, now, the FoTM a bit like they hated ele with the change to heal signet and like they hated Ranger with the change to power longbow. They are forced to recognize the class while they could just roflstomp them before

Moreover a few stronger traits/bugs (confounding suggestion, Pu blind on shatter goes through evade, etc) create dissatisfaction in the community

Hulkmaster.1724:

and what difference between ranked\unranked then ?!?!?!?
there are 3 types of games – custom \ unranked \ ranked – what’s the difference?!

custom is… well I don’t know, I see it as the shabby place to test builds and stuff, not good usually .
Unranked is where you want to play mostly for fun be still be serious about it
Ranked is where the win/loss ratio and points goes to leaderboard

Saturn.6591:

On topic:

I agree that there should something be done with CoF (the shatter-skill; not the dungeon). The cooldown doesn’t feel right for what it does in its current form.

Off topic:

Pepsi.8907:

Shatter blind is bugged because it triggers on dodge, once it fix, it will be fine,

Are you sure you’re not mistaking Ineptitude for a bug?

Yes I’m sure, Blinding Dissipation is currently bugged and go through evade

Pepsi.8907:

Reflect on manipulation isn’t that great to begin with, except with decoy or blink, but the CD is so high anyway…

Decoy actually isn’t a manipulation, and thus doesn’t trigger any reflects.

oopsie, my bad… Thank you for the correctiom

Aggrostemma.1703:

Ragnar: you are right

The problem isn’t the burn’s overall damage. It’s the damage per second.
So I say reduce the stacks by a third and extend the duration 33%.

We are talking about the “burn-classes” right now… I wouldn’t call a nerf on ranger or warrior burn

Exactly! I haven’t felt so much pain from war or ranger’s burning than the one from ele or guardian

Aomine.5012:

Zintrothen.1056:

Now that they’re aware of this, they’ll do the logical thing…increase the CD of MW to that of CoF!

Na, this is not necessary.

I think the most urgent priority for Anet to fix Mesmer is disable/nerf PU, and add an ICD for reflect on manipulation (10 sec) reflect on dodge (10 sec), and shatter blind (5 sec)

It is quite insane a class can has this many on demand reflect by doing literally nothing.. This basically tell you that if you’re not Mesmer, go kitten yourself because you’d never kill them in WvW.

ICD on Reflect on Manipulation, Lol?
ICD on reflect on dodge, Lol?
ICD on shatter blind, lol?
disable PU, lol?

You want us to be thief/ranger food right?
Shatter blind is bugged because it triggers on dodge, once it fix, it will be fine,
PU needs shaving to 75% not disabling, especially not with others competitig GM traits that can make it easily overlooked, it’s really not necessary unless in a Sharing boon build, simply because adding swiftness and might counter the defensive boons by reducing the amount of times they actually are granted, given that any of the retal/protect is already finished when you get visible again…
More stealth uptime means nothing… We still have the same number of traits giving stealth, for a higher duration no one will even use completely
We’re just more annoying, it’s nothing to fret about, stealth shatter burst would still exist even without PU

Reflect on manipulation isn’t that great to begin with, except with decoy or blink, but the CD is so high anyway…

Reflect on dodge… with the nerf to vigor and the low sustain of mesmer, they can’t waste dodge as it is, I barely glance at the skill because there are others much more viable trait to take in the line

The formula itself is at fault, the base damage is way too high, giving the opportunity for mediocre condi damage to stack what would be considered high damage normally available only to high condi build
Thus making conditions based build extremely strong in the area regarding burning.
Yes it makes condi build from Guardian and ele viable, but at the moment it’s way too strong

I’ll try to do guard ahah but ice never played it, I’ll ask my friends for builds and such and come back with something ^. ^

Thank you everyone for your input, yes I was aware that directly changing burning for bleeding is not really viable in term of numbers, especially since the duration isn’t the same for the two conditions, yet my main goal was to point out through math how op burning actually is for the accessibility that some class have to stack it (here was ele, but guardian would have been viable too)

Nova Stiker.8396:

There is a couple things wrong with your statistics.

Any ele fighting with under 20 stacks of might is bad.
Any ele using 3 Cantips is REALLY bad.
Any ele using Rune of Strength is also bad.

I don’t see where you take your assumptions, some builds have a harder time stacking might and, as I said, I wanted to use a number of stack people in DC could achieve very very easily even if they mess up their rotation: hence 15. I could have used 25, but it’s not permanent and harder to stack… Would have messed up with the data I was trying to gather for the sake of giving higher numbers… Not my goal

I don’t see where you take your idea that triple cantrip is bad. The synergy for cantrip is one of the best offered to ele all over their tree, added to actually very useful utilities, you may want to review your judgment and opinion

I don’t get how a flat 45% might duration increase added to a flat 4-5% damage increase under might is bad… Really? It s one of the best rune to use for a D/D ele simply because it make might stack so easy for an ele. Is it the only one? No. But synergy, again, is great…

Your opinions are personal, however the forum community and meta build that has been existing for awhile disagrees with you…

• Average cleansing from foe based on cele statistics

Let’s take another cele ele running the same setup
has 9 clear condis (I’ll leave the elite out because the CD messes everything)

• Water attunment (1 condi) 8 CD
• Cleansing Wave (1 condi on dodge) 10 CD
• Cleansing Wave (1 condi) 40 CD
• Lightning Flash (1 condi) 32 CD
• Cleansing Fire (4 condi) 32 CD
• Armor of Earth (1 condi) 60 CD
  That’s around 1 condi per 19 1/2 seconds

So on average, in an ele vs an ele scenario one can stack burning around 1 1/4 time faster than what another cele ele can remove… *
So on average, a cele ele will eat a full average stack of average burning from another cele… and *hold it for the 1/4 of the time (one second or one tick) before cleaning it and having it reapplied…
*A cele ele eats 864,15 of burning before cleansing it.
Something easily healed but that’s without all the raw DPS and other condis in the mix

Now here’s a shatter mesmer running inspiration with restorative illusion, rune of ogre, zerker amulet and ether feast
He has 5 cleanse condis (which 2 of them happens to be offensive skills as well):

• Mind Wrack (1 condi) 12 CD
• Cry of frustration (1 condi) 25 CD
• Diversion (1 condi) 38 CD
• Distortion (1 condi) 50 CD
• Ether Feaste (1 condi) 20 CD
  That’s 1 condi on an average of 29 CD

A cele ele stacks burning 1.87 times faster than what the mesmer can cleanse
So a mesmer will eat 3.48 seconds of 3 burning stacks before being able to clean it on average
That’s 3.7k of burning on average… without raw dps without other condis to cleanse

A signet boonshare mesmer (Draft 2 of chaos maestro build v2.0) has 12 condi cleanse

• Mind Wrack (1 condi) 12 CD
• Cry of frustration (1 condi) 25 CD
• Diversion (1 condi) 38 CD
• Distortion (1 condi) 50 CD
• Mirror (1 condi) 12 CD
• Signet of Inspiration (1 condi) 24 CD
• Signet of Midnight (1 condi) 24 CD
• Signet of Illusion (1 condi) 48 CD (RESETS SHATTER)

That’s still 1 condi on an average of 29 CD
A cele ele stacks burning 1.87 times faster than what the mesmer can cleanse
So a mesmer will eat 3.48 seconds of 3 burning stacks before being able to clean it on average
That’s 3.7k of burning on average… without raw dps without other condis to cleanse

We’re not in a teamfight, we’re not a burning guard, and we’re not calculating the actual percentage of skill miss/blind/block/evade the other person may do.
We’re just calculating based on formulas and numbers from the game the actual pure dps of Burning

FEEL FREE TO ADD DATA FROM YOUR OWN CLASS I DON’T KNOW THE OTHERS

• Hypothetical Bleed VS Burn

Just to give a bit of a comparison, let’s replace burning, here, with bleeding formula (let’s say that all burning skills from ele are replaced with bleeding just for fun)
Formula is:
Bleeding: (0.06 * Condition Damage) + 22
Burning: (0.155 * Condi damage) + 131.5 per stack
My cele ele with 15 might stack deals (1010 condi damage):
82.6 bleeding per tick VS 288.05 per tick of burning
247.8 per second on 3 stacks VS 864.15 per second on 3 stacks
On average foe who ate the full four seconds will take:
991.2 DoT of bleeding VS 3456.6 DoT of Burning
almost 3.5 more burning DoT than bleeding

My condi/bleeding ele with 15 might stack (1972 condi damage):
140.32 bleeding per tick VS 437.16 Burning per tick
420.96 per second on 3 stacks VS 1311.48 per second on 3 stacks
On average foe who ate the full 4.6 seconds will take:
1936 DoT of bleeding VS 6032.808
Here we have a burning 3.11 times the amount of bleeding

When a condition is so superior that it deals 3 times the amount of damage FROM THE SAME STATS,
What does that tell you?

We’re all whining on burning, on how it’s OP, posting pictures and all, what about actual math???
I made them ,though I suck at math, it’s not my talent, but STILL, I made them and I think (from the tests) the actual numbers are not so stretched out

• NUMBERS & STATS

• CELE ELE WITH RUNE OF STRENGTH

The burning formula is (0.155 * condi damage) + 131.5 per stack

A cele D/D ele has 5 skills to apply burning:
A cele ele sits at 15 might with his eyes closed
1010 condi damage with might
How does that affect burning?
288.05 per tick of burning
Our cele might stacked ele deals 288 per tick of burning not bad.
Which skills applies burning:

• Drake’s breath (4 stack for 3 seconds) 5 second CD
• Burning speed (one stack 1 and 1/2 sec) 15 second CD
• Ring of Fire (3 stacks for 5 seconds each time you go through the ring) 15 second CD
• Flame burst of evasive arcana (2 stacks for 6 seconds)10 CD (available on each attunment swap)
• Cleansing fire (3 stacks for 4 seconds) 32 CD
  So on average he has one burning skill per 15 1/2 second
  On average his burning skills are on a duration of 4 second (it’s a tidsy bit lower than that)
  On average you give 3 stack of burning

Here’s your average Cantrip Cele on Strength rune. You sit at a perma 15 might without even trying and you have 5 skills that deals burning, From Drake’s breath 5 CD to Cleansing Fire 32 CD
So on average he has one burning skill per 15 1/2 second
On average his burning skills are on a duration of 4 second (it’s a tidsy bit lower than that)
On average you give 3 stack of burning
so, on average, a cele ele with 15 might deals 864.15 DoT per second.
On average, if someone has no means of clearing the stack it’s a full 3888.675 DoT of burning
Let’s be honest, no one will leave a full 4 second of burning
So 3 stacks for 2 seconds: 1728.3 DoT of burning
2 stacks for 4 seconds: 2304.4 DoT of burning
2 stacks for 2 seconds: 1152.2 DoT of burning

I think human reflex, unless mitigating circumstances, will make someone get 2 stack of burning ON AVERAGE (pure supposition, not tested), and will make it clear quite fast, but AT LEAST tick once or twice…
Still that’s not even condi…

It’s pure cele bruiser with might stack dealing 864 on 15 might stack I’m not even shy of saying that perma 20 or even perma 22 is not far of a stretch without even Pyromancer puissance.
A bruiser/power type class deals on average over 800 per second on 3 stacks of one condition on an amount of might that a good ele can maintain with his eyes closed
You’re not even specced to even TRY at condi, yet you deal around what I can achieve with 6 stacks of confusion from my mesmer sitting at 1200 condi damage…

• CONDI ELE WITH RUNE OF STRENGTH

If I trait my ele on a purely burning/condi speck in earth/fire/x with rabid amulet and rune of strength
Fire: Burning precision/Power Overwhelming/Pyromancer’s puissance
Earth: x/Strength of stone/x
With 15 might stack and the 10% from power (which also increased from might) I have 1972 condi damage.
I deal 437.16 per tick from burning alone
If I take my average from before:
Take into account that my burning duration is increased ny 10%

• Drake’s breath (4 stack for 3 1/2 seconds) 5 second CD
• Burning speed (one stack 1 and 1/2 sec) 15 second CD
• Ring of Fire (3 stacks for 6 seconds each time you go through the ring) 15 second CD
• Flame burst of evasive arcana (2 stacks for 7 1/4 seconds)10 CD (available on each attunment swap)
• Cleansing fire (3 stacks for 4 3/4 seconds) 32 CD
  The average CD and burning per CD is the same
  On average your burning skills are on a duration of 4.6 second
  On average you give 3 stack of burning
  That’s 1311.48 DoT per second on 3 stacks
  That’s a total of 6032.808 on 4.6 seconds for 3 stacks of burning

lightson.2310:

Mesmers are strong but if you know their general rotation and when to dodge they’re pretty straightforward on what to do to deal with it

robertul.3679:

Eles are still stuck with water+arcana as pretty much mandatory. If they trait earth they will deal 0 dps so they are forced to either fire or air. And since air kinda sucks right now, the general consensus is fire water arcana for celestial builds at least.

It’s not the same for mesmer as other classes. Every class got a free trait line but mesmers got basically 2.
First the extra one all classes got and the second one because there is no need to trait illusions anymore.

It’s like if thieves got sleight of hand, bountiful theft and thrill of the crime as class mechanics. Or eles got evasive arcana, elemental attunement and whatever vigor on crit is called as baseline. See the problem?

Off Topic in reply to the quote above

Arcana is a useless line and ill probably get shot down for saying that

Evasive arcana is a crutch trait and you are taking it for 1 decent trait in Evasive or elem Attunement

You could argue that Evasive helps with might stacking which it does, but if you take fire and then the trait where you have 1might stack avery single time you cast a skill in fire then it isnt a problem and can keep 25 might up pretty easy, while gaining a lot of other useful traits such as 10% dps incrase -33% cd reduction to fire and an auto condi clear on 3 condi’s +

Then you could say that you need the fury from attune switch, if you play D/D you take the Auras give Fury + swiftness for 5s, and then take either tempest for that extra fury stacking or just take Aeromancers training for that extra dps while in Air with BTH or FA.

And with those two lines only you have increased dps and kept might stacking up by dropping arcana. But you can keep survivability through either the earth or Water lines, water being better for team aura share. You could even drop either Fire or air for Earth and then do some prot spamming.

Ele’s need to drop the idea that Arcana is 100% needed all the time post patch

To keep on the off topic thing, I wanted to try a Fire/Earth/Water ele just to see how it goes
The sustain from earth should, IMO, resolve the issue brought by Elem Attun and Evasive Arcana, whereas I never noticed a difference in the vigor nerf with energy sigil, I think I’ll drop the line altogether and see how it goes

A zerker mesmer will always be a prey for a zerker thief of equal or superior skills, simply because the thief has the mechanics (stealth) to counter mesmer.
Yes we have more stealth thanks to PU and all, we can’t, however, spam it like thieves can. Our duration are longer, the CD are too.
No cele ele of equal or superior skills will get bursted down in one rotation
the sustain of a cele ele simply won’t let it happen and if it’s not locked out of water it will heal itself at least back to 50%

I enjoy it and do not at the same time
As Leodon said, the gap (or lack there of) of skills between players has grown exponentially.
The fights are either drawn out for a very long time, or end up faster than you can blink.
I love this sort of games, mistakes are severely punished and you need to know your game to play, it’s not about faceroll and bruising anymore.

However, major bugs, major problems are still there, and beside a thread made about “the things the devs knew” we simply don’t have feedback.
We don’t even know if the power and condition creep is intended or not.
I don’t like receiving 3 stack of burning in my face, to clean it, to receive it again, to clean it, and then to receive it again with no means of cleansing myself.
“shortest duration spawn” maybe, but it’s the fastest way to kill anything too.
They just hide the burn behind cripple/bleed/poison and you can’t even hope to remove it.
Sometimes I burn so fast, I can’t even hit decoy on time.

I don’t like this meta. I like the potential behind it, I like the ideas behind it, but the actual result is depressing and saddening.
I liked it at first, and now getting on feels like a chore, my mesmer get bursted down, or I shatter people and kill them before any of them could react, getting insulted for using “cheesy shatter”
I use a boonshare build I love a lot and seems to work, until guardian or ele roll in and melt my face.
I may have 11 cleans condis, one on a 10 sec cooldown, it’s sometimes not enough. Even if I intelligently cleanse it.
How do you want to clean burning smartly? I don’t even want to see it, I don,t even want to feel it, I feel like I’ve been bursted down by DoT

Where is the diversity the devs talked about?
All I see are the same power/condis builds. Anything going away from that gets bursted down
What’s left for me? For everyone? get on this new burning/power train and leave it to the first hit for deciding the winning?
Nope.
I think I’ll just go on another game for awhile. Witcher 3 tempted me, I may very well take a break from GW2 until the bugs are fixed.

Yes, you can also support with boonshare, which shouldn’t be underestimated.
It’s actually a fairly strong capability to actually share ALL of your boons with the exact time remaining.
I shared 2 times in a row my 1 min swiftness, 15 stack of might and 30 sec of regen (was with ele and war at the time)
It stack might to 25 awful quick, just give me 12-13 stack BAM 25 for everyone (except me of course)
Want your regen doubled? Give it to me, BAM double regen time for everyone
Want more retal, aegis, protection? Trait pu, use full stealth time with boon duration runes, share BAM all them boons given

Please…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFJqFWQVca0
on a condi ele 5 stack of bleed does between 550 – 600 per tick
3 stack of burning : 900 – 1100 per tick
This is not fine, not at all

Time?
They had the time to fix unintended specs and all.
Hell they even fixed a minor (healing prism) because someone decided to use it alongside leeching sigils and runes, they can fix things fast enough I think
Where’s the burning fix? Where’s the PU shave? Where’s the engi nade barrage fix?
Why is it that minor things get to be fixed before MAJOR GAME BREAKING problems…
I mean kittening hell, how do you want people to play against the burning right now?
How do you want anyone to survive against ONE skill who one shot you solid.
If you want to survive at all you need to get into niche build full of cleansing and sustain and sacrificing the every bit of dps you have.
I don’t even want to play my ele, it’s just not fair to faceroll everyone by stacking burning.
It’s just not pleasant and funny…
I understand that sometimes it’s hard to fix somethings, that the code can be messed up and all. But please, Anet, you had one week… it’s time to show some MAJOR fix

in pve the best defense is offense
Try to deal as much damage as possible while avoiding dying and you’ll already be a major asset and support to your team

Ah… you’re right
My Apologies ^.^
ALMOST QQ then

Sitting duck as a moa?
Moa IS POWER
JK, but on a more serious note, I know mesmers sometimes get confident and lean in close range to attack their new moaed enemy, forgetting that moa still deals quite the amount of power

Usually if I want to escape, I wait one second, use 5, wait one second, dodge, wait another second, dodge and then use the jumping skill.

I’m far enough away that I can wait for the CD on moa to end.

you assume it’s a easy fix, doesn’t mean it’s the case.
It could be tied with another part of the code that requires quite a bit of time to fix without breaking anything further, we don’t know that.
The Code itself could be a huge mess of lines and lines and lines with no real way of making a clean, definite way into it, which cause delay and other problems. (I’m not judging your way of coding Anet, simply pointing out some things that I previously saw)
We don’t know that.
In fact, we only know the problem ingame itself, not what’s happening in The Code behind. Assuming that it’s an easy fix because the problem is as clear as the day is wrong.

It’s QQ when no justification is brought alongside your “facts”

Remove cooldowns from the class! Make everything insta and breakstun
All water skills should remove 2 condis each too, because ele doesn’t have enough sustain
…
Please
…

I’m working based on Chaos Maestro build (boonshare)
Here’s what I came up with
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R3lZ;1ZUF61y6ZW-71;9;4VWU;0147248147;41tG6U;1OZG5OZG59I
Keep in mind that sigil of bursting is, in fact, Sigil of Life
I sometimes swap out the Dolyak Rune for Dwayna or Mercy (with Medic’s feedback trait)
And even MoR for SoEF for even more passive heal (lose 2 condi cleanse)

Overall it’s extremely tanky, I share a lot of boons, still have stunbreaks, peels and defense.
Don’t expect any sort of Damage beside DoT, you’re not a dueler or a fighter, you’re a boon bot with excessive defense and some condis as a bonus

It’s a bummer that the distort is counter productive, I actually liked it better :/
May still keep it however, I’m of the mind that as long as you win a fight, losing the point during doesn’t matter.
I kite so much anyway, that I can’t even stand on the point and end up losing it either way…

Anyway, Since we’re on the topic of boonshare, I’ll still post my idea there, simply because you’re the basis of mine, but I went on a totally different road than you, and sacrificed any kind of damage for a full bunker/support boonshare build with condis as a bonus.
Got a few variant, but overall they remain the same :/

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R3lZ;1ZUF61y6ZW-71;9;4VWU;0147248147;41tG6U;1OZG5OZG59I
Intothemist didn’t let me do it, but replace the sigil of bursting for sigil of life
You got passive heal from the rune, and an effective active heal from mantra (2 condi cleanse) with the IDefender added to your toughness you don’t go down easily.
Scratch that, I needed a necro condi with burning guard and thief to get me down :/
Any Power based build just won’t have the capacity to kill you, not with your stealth, boons and armor

You can be pure bunker/boonshare if you take the rune of Dwayna instead of Dolyak and you transform yourself in a nice regen/healing/boonshare bot.

You can swap restorative mantra for Medic’s feedback and Mercy rune to be an incredible rezzing asset

Or go back to a more offensive build with Sigil of Ether Feast (Passive heal), rune of the traveler and sigil of bursting instead of life

I’ll post videos soon enough…

The best mesmers has their own rotations. Why? because the more a rotation is used, the more it becomes known and with how telegraphed mesmers skills are, it’s very easy to avoid
HOWEVER
keep in mind
Mind wrack and cry of frustration are your two offensive shatter, diversion and distortion are your defensive one
Use your blink and decoy to get out of sight.
You can start channeling GS2 at a safe distance to blink on target while the channel is still active, this will cause the skill to bounce on you and the enemy, getting the max dmg potential out of the skill.
Use mind wrack at the same time for great dmg
GS4 should be used as a burst setter (opening skill, baiting, getting a clone) GS2 and GS3 are your burst skills and should be use with shatters
Try to keep Sword 2 and even sword 3 as a defensive method (sword 3 is a nice teleport to get behind enemy)
even if your clones dies, with your skills and DE you should pump them fast enough to compensate the ones who are killed
Staff 2 is a great evasion skills and used in a glamour gives chaos armor
Staff 5 is an awesome skills, use it as often as possible, it deals damage, daze and stack condis and buffs
I still haven,t found a proper use for torch 5 except for when I need a clone :/
Practice your blink and GS2 channel, it deals insane damage
That’s what I can think of
And the typical rotations for an opening shatter: Torch 4, wait 2 sec, gs2, blink while channeling, mind wrack, gs3
You can use GS4 inbetween in replacement of the 2 sec wait, for an additional clone and a dodge bait.
There’s also that torch 4, torch 5, s3, dodge, s3, s2, Mind wrack, distortion, dodge, gs5. But you waste 2 shatters for one guy

Keep in mind that shatters need time and setting to be effective
You need 3 clones for best burst
You need your clones around your enemy to be sure to land
You need to bait for dodge to make sure your burst isn’t avoided
You need stealth and to move out of the view of your foe
You need to keep constant dmg WHILE planning your burst
etc
etc
etc

why can’t they just separate the two things… they did with stealth, why not do it overall, they could separate balance between pvp and pve
yes that had be more trouble, but it would be easier to keep both parties happy

Your just saying mesmer too op on a basis that you one shotted a few guys… Many people run dps build these days and are really squishy, some are testing builds they don’t know about, others are simply bad or new or have no idea on how to fight a mesmer.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, there are problems to address right now such as PU mesmer with insane burst dmg, backstab thief who can dish 20k in less than 3 sec and the burning plague, but you have a very wrong and very subjective way of approaching the subject and it kitten people off because you’re not bringing any empirical facts.
“Just roll on a mesmer and play a shatter build” I hear you say, and I’ll tell you that in a 1v1 there isn’t any mesmer who took me down in one shot, it hasn’t happen in the two weeks of the new patch and I highly doubt it will happen now… But it’s subjective, because I run a highly sustainable build with insta heals and high defense, does it void the problem?no because other classes are struggling g too hard. Should anyone face roll a mesmer? No either. There are class and builds who aren’t meant to beat other class or builds
But is it as godmode as some people claim it to be? No. It’s just more noticeable, not ONLY because of the mesmer buff (many things remain mostly the same) , but because of the amulet buff.
We trained fully in a line that gave us condi duration and boon duration, with 4 in a power condi dmg line and 4 other on a ferocity and precision with zerker that had vitality on it at the time
It mitigate A Lot of dmg compare to today where we just slot offensive stats

“and test out the damage” please, there’s dozen of possible variant of a build in pvp alone what with runes, sigil and am. Even more in PvE and wvw, add to that that the DEV must also focus on spotting glitches, bugs and eventual problems…
They are so sorry for not bowing to your every whim and taking into account Every single combination…
Player are testing out and finding things and anet will adjust as they see fit. Not everyone will be happy, but they’ll do what they can. The meta isn’t even fixed yet, it hasn’t even been two weeks and it always start with people doing as much dmg as possible. Then some will tire out of dying because of a fart and bunkers will take over, nerfs ans buffs will happen and then we will have a meta.
Do wait before complaining about unfairness

^ take my cookie for that pun

While yes it is a good synergy, I just feel that ele and watrior(?) still produce might at a faster speed and share it much easier than mesmer because most of their might comes from fire field
There’s a great potential for boonshare, something I have rarely seen in pvp as a whole (yes there is those are boons, but taking boons from allies and yourself and distributing them widely is a far cry from that) but using I inspiration only for might is not using the trait to its full potential, if you’re interested you can go take a look at chaos archangel boon share build that should be somewhere on the first two page of the forums
It’s a great build that really make use of this boon/distortion share and it can still be tweaked to personal taste in all sort of fashion

I wanted signet of domi for better condi, but I switched out for decoy in the last games and it’s working better
I may switch the signet heal for mantra because of the amount of stealth I have for Recharge…
I’ll test your new build tomorrow, but in the meantime, here’s my video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cyjS3EBvuI0

Again me
I really LOVE the potential of this build, but here’s what I notice
I don’t really feel the use of mimic with the actual pump of phantasm available… to be honest
By using Shatters both as OFFENSIVE and DEFENSIVE play, you stretch out too much and lose actual potential on both sides.
Because Shatters are such a core mechanics in direct damage, I feel the same when trying to fit a rupt/direct damage build with a boonshare/support
I made quite a bit of changes, where people may not agree on, I actually simply kept the idea of boonshare as a whole, which is a really interesting play for mesmers
but YES it IS condi and not interrupt at all

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-RZ-3l;0k2G51S7gW-71;9;4UVW;0147247248;4SsWFT;1jzyvjzyv9J

Why the changes?
As I said earlier, I thought that by staying raw dps/rupt it stretched the skills in two opposite direction (sustain AND dps) To keep the actual boonshare, I decided to swap to a more defensive build relying on DoT and condis, and a more passive play where I had more time to focus on the actual boons I had on myself than the fight, knowing when to share and when to… not share.
For me, the best weapons for dishing out reliable condis are scepter/torch and staff, so I left the sword and focus and switched.

Knowing that, I tweaked on the build. I need stealth and Defense, so I kept MI, traited Prismatic Understanding and Idefense with chaotic transfer for the aditionnal condi

Since my shatters would only be used as a rare condi pump (CoF) and mostly a condi cleanse/heal, I needed to keep my phantasm as long as possible, so switched Medic feedback to Persisting image.

with that, I can keep up to two Pdefender (haven’t seen the impact yet or how it reacts)

Now here the big change: Domination for Illusions
I switched the distort and clean condi on signet for condi clear on torch, increased speed on scepter
Now because I’m not really using shatter, I decided to use Phantasmal Haste, but the phantasm I possess are… well… they are not the sword or focus phantasm, let’s keep it at that…

Because there’s lots of passive/stealth going on (sorta) I switch EF for SoTE.
socked in a nice tougness/condi dmg/healing power amu and traveler rune (tried toughness rune, but the min maxing difference is abysmal at best (depends on your preference for offense/defense, but I feel you actually lose more on the overall with another rune than traveler)

CURRENT PROS
Boonshare over and over again, with the actual phantasm, the stealth boons and the signet I have lots of boon to share, and lots of sharing skills even without mimic

Decent passive damage: Passive damage can be sneered upon, but here, where your goal is to SHARE your boons, you don’t have time to focus on the fight. Let your pretty illusions pump the dps, throw in a few skills and focus on your teammates, that’s where you shine.

Stealth/healing/Pdefenser: Now that’s what I call sustain, trust me. I could 1v2 with little problems, and 1v1 drags on forever YES even against a thief. And the condi cleanse? Unless you,re being locked and vomitted on with condis, you have decent cleanse at decent CD, that burning guard will just drop his jaw when he sees his over 9000 stack of burning cleanse away.

Mobility: 90% swiftness uptime added to 25% mov. speed of traveler? nothing can run from you without teleports, I swear it’s a joke. Just AA with scepter to keep torment on and you’ll laugh maniacally.

CURRENT ISSUES

Not much invuln: I actually miss the distort on signet, but it’s a fair trade-on that doesn’t cost too much, I believe.

no DE… A skill I’m missing even though my illusion generation is quite alright (especially since I don’t shatter much)

No Blink/Decoy: Again, same issue, I’m used to them, I love them to death, but I have stealth from MI and The Prestige, 25% mobility increase with 90% uptime swiftness, I think I mitigated the impact (let’s hope the 1 stun break I have will be enough)

No insta cast skills (beside staff 2): that’s a bummer, if I get thrown, pulled or whatever, I can die really easily, my only stun break is a channel skill and if I’m locked out of staff, I have no means to get away, I must rely on not getting touched with those locking skills

Vulnerable to condi spam: I may have lots of condi cleanse at first, but then everything is on cooldown and the vit is HORRIBLE. It’s intelligent cleanse, because, otherwise, it,s certain death. I swear DON’T GET CONDI SPAMMED without condi cleanse…

Alright, made a few tests, overall the damage is correct, nothing to fret about.
I feel like it’s more of a bunkish/teamplay build, especially compared to a true rupt or a shatter build.
What really makles this build shine are the boons.
I have tons of boons, ALL THE TIME.
The lacking point comes into spvp, I feel it is more of a tpvp/organized group, where you can call your shared boon.
It is decent in 1v1 and I can actually hold my ground quite well in 1v2, even 1v3 (but this one I suspect it was skill play more than the build itself)

I’m trying a variant, keeping Signet of inspiration, but switching mimic and midnight for MoD and Phantasmal Defender, I also replaced Ether Feast with SotE with zerker amu and monk rune…
I’ll see how this plays out and give feedback

I dig! Will try your build with Signet of Domination, Rune of Strength and Celestial Ammy just to see the changes. It’s probably more of a Hybrid lockdown/condi with some boon share in the mix, and I feel like I’ll pull myself in too many direction, but OH WELL

exactly, I barely dodge for the mitigating damages, prefer to reserve them for those O-kitten moments in my day…
PR, blurred frenzy and even chaos storm provides nice escape capabilities
I started using CDampening post patch and IDefense with an interrupt build (that I posted somewhere not long ago) and I find it mitigating the damage quite well

PS: I’m already in

Interrupt Mesmer (or whatever it is relying on interupt :/)

• The Build
  http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-RFRZ;1VPV1127BW-71;9;4STU;0038238156;4Uom3L;1KJG4KJG45A

• Variant

— I tried replacing the Lyssa rune for Mad king with Rampager Amulet, the DoT from condis weren’t impressive per say, and no where near a proper condi build, but they did a fair enough job what with pistols and Chaos Storm

— Replacing the berserker amulet for marauder lessens the power of the build, but heighten your vitality by 560, which is not a negligible amount

— You can replace blink for decoy, whatever fits your play style

— Haven’t tried swapping sigils yet, feel free to tweak it.

• How to play

— Not any different from your usual interrupt build, interrupting hurt like a kitten, you can stack vulnerability faster than an ele can stack might, added that your shatters now also hits like a truck, and you have a very impressive build if properly handled.

— Time your interrupt well (you can simply focus on auto-attack for effective yet simple interrupt, after a dodge is also reliable and any channeling skills are easy target (beware of stability)

— Always look at the enemy’s Boon’s bar for retal, aegis and stability before interrupting / stun / daze, saves precious skills.

— Keep your mantra for wide AoE interrupt (rez or stomps) anmd prefer your skill interrupt from pistol over the other two (weapon skills > shatter > mantra)

— If you’re about to get burst down, just shatter for 240 radius aoe blind, not much, but can be quite a life saver)

— If you time your staff skills properly, you should have at least a 50 – 80% protection uptime with Chaos armor (Staff 4, Staff 5 with Staff 2 inside OR Staff 5 with sword 3 leap inside, asking someone to blast when Tqueuing is a nice add also)

— You also have 3% reduce damage for each phatasm/illusion active, do keep as much of them as possible

— Interrupt doesn’t only hurt, but also recharge your pistol skills, making you able to have 2 phantasmal duelist alive in a short span of time.

— Null Field and Lyssa runes (coupled with mass invis) gives you nice clear condis available and even boon ripping, use it wisely…

— BEWARE of Medi/dps guards, Thieves, any condi build (your cleanses are on relatively high CD, any condi burst post your cleanse will make you go down faster than my drunk uncle at christmas (stairs story, lots of blood, no serious wound)

• Efficacity

It’s hard, to pronounce myself this soon into the patch
Haven’t played enough and doesn’t have enough data from others to form a proper opinion, but I feel it is a solid build, though it needs a few tweaks around the edge, but time will let me have a better view on it.

I always had an energy sigil on my sword/staff exactly because I like wasting dodges, it didn’t change post patch, and I don’t see myself lacking that many evasion :/

And are you ready to say that, from what we have heard AS OF NOW, it’s worth the current price and pre-purchase with no release date whatsoever? PLZ TELL ME MOAR

On another note, GG WP OP, sarcasm was obvious, but I laughed

^ it has already been said

The good side of all this,
Forum community is pretty much united for once
:D
Thanks Anet for uniting YOUR community against YOU…

Just go on… well… the first three page of Heart of Thorns discussion and GW2 discussion… maybe up to fifth page LOL, you’ll have your answer

ArrogantHero.4965:

Nyx.7342:

Just because you spend x amount of dollars on something regularly does not mean you should buy something overpriced. Yeah sure I buy a cup of coffee everyday that costs about 2$. I could buy this chair i want for 600$ and just say, oh that’s only 300 days worth of coffee, but wouldn’t that be stupid especially if the cost of the chair was overpriced?

If you don’t agree with the price of something, you shouldn’t buy it and you have a right to complain about it especially since this isn’t a full expansion and it’s something that for many of us is unavoidable. It’s not like we are new customers who are purchasing a product for the first time. If that were the case then yeah dont buy it. But since we already are part of gw2 this expansion at this price is basically screwing us over….

There is some merit to what you are saying, but a whole bunch of you are being DRAMA QUEENS. You all want a price drop that is like a 20-30 dollar difference. MOST of you PROBABLY spend hundreds, some of you thousands on video games every year. What’s $30 compared to that?!

I don’t necessarily want a price drop, I want a well worth Price/value
Meaning content justifying paying 50$, which is not what I have witnessed so far

I don’t want this combo gw2+xpac thing, I want the xpac and a character slot, even if they keep it at the same price, I don’t want a second account I won’t ever use… I want my xpac and a slot to have my revenant slammed on

I don’t want this kind of relationship Anet is giving us, by changing their FAQ suddenly, a 180 turn around making people feel scam by having bought a useless gw2 account because, in the end, the xpac contained a core game, and promoting two different things through the mods on the forums and the FAQ, it feels scammy, shabby and makes me want to just quit it. This is not the company I paid for my gw2 game, this is not the company I traded with for the past few years.

50$ is a fine price for an expansion… when the content delivered is worth it
A combo core game + expac is TOTALLY fine, if we, as vets, can get something without feeling like being robbed of a core game…
Being told that there won’t be a box edition or that we won’t have to buy gw2 is TOTALLY fine, when Anet can actually keep its word and not change it at the last minute, attracting a very serious threat of lawsuit on their kitten…

ArrogantHero.4965:

Kythan Myr.4719:

On the same note, I would not pay the same price for a movie sequel as the original unless it contained the same amount of content.

This proves my point though. If you pay for the movies you are paying too much and have no right to be talking about the price for GW2.

This proves nothing, you just slammed your deck on the table claiming it’s a win and make no argument to actually proof your decision.
Value is highly personnal and subjective…
Yes I’ll Q.Q about that Xpac because IN MY OPINION, from what I HAVE SEEN, the content of the Xpac is not worth 50$
Just the same IN MY OPINION, from what I HAVE SEEN, that movie in the theater is well worth my money, does that makes me a hypocrite?
No, it makes me a person capable of judging what is worth or not in her eyes
If YOU think that the content provided by HoT is WORTH that 50$, then, by no means, BUY IT!
If YOU think that paying for a movie at the theater is too much then DON’T GO AT THE THEATER
but it’s personal, you can’t call people hypocrites on two different aspects of life where they might have different view of what they find worthy or not…
it makes you… self conceited and arrogant because YOU claim that others have the same base value as you do, which is not the case.
Hypocrite would be to whine and whine about the game while having bought it.
Criticizing the game on the chat game is hypocrite, you have it, you paid for it, and then you whine about it.
THAT is hypocrite
Not wanting to pay for a movie because you find it worthwhile, WHILE refusing to pay for an xpac you find lacking for the price… That’s OPINION…

Forums may very well never be happy, but it’s always conflicted
As it is, I see 90% unhappy and 5% begrudgingly accepting this and another 5% totally happy with it, pretty unanimous for me :/

Shifu.4321:

It’s not really free, but rather free WITH HoT. It’s like buying a hotdog sandwich and getting a free drink, as opposed to buying the drink standalone. It’s an incentive for new players.

I already have my drink, I don’t want to pay for that combo hotdog + drink, because, first, I don’t need a second dronk and, second, I’ll pay that combo thing, while only receiving the hotdog
can I, PLEASE!, pay for the hotdog alone, without feeling robbed of a drink that I would never even need either way, so I feel no use in paying, either way?

AWACS.6537:

Shifu.4321:

It’s not really free, but rather free WITH HoT. It’s like buying a hotdog sandwich and getting a free drink, as opposed to buying the drink standalone. It’s an incentive for new players.

We’re still paying the exact same price for less.
It’s like you pay 5 bucks for a drink.
You pay another 5 bucks for the hotdog.

The new customer pays 5 bucks for both the drink and the hotdog.

I have NO problems with that
I chose to buy it when I wanted it, and now I’d like to have the xpac without the core game, if there’s an incentive for new players NICE, I like that, it’s GREAT!
But I don’t like being SHAFTED in the process and have NO other options than feeling like buying a second core game I’ll NEVER use or even see…

Here’s my reasonning (despite my rant upward)
ultimate is better than deluxe if you’re already a gem buyer and know you’ll buy 50$ worth of gem either way (which is my case)
So, basically, you get the 50$ gems that you’d have bought one day, can use it or store it or whatever, and you pay standard edition for all the deluxe upgrades
Is it worth it?
I don’t know, I’m still conflicted even after the purchase (I got 2 char slots though :o shhh!)
that 4k gems is nicely stored and won’t go anywhere, I know I’d buy the equivalent a day or the other, so I just made it now and I’m done with it…
see it how you want

Altosk.8492:

When you pre order HoT you are NOT buying the core game as well. You are paying for all of the content that come with the expansion. The core game itself is absolutely FREE with this purchase and is just a added bonus for those who don’t already have the game. If you already own the game then you now have a spare account that you can use for alts(which is a good deal if you don’t want to pay for more character slots), give it to a friend or try out the EU servers if you NA only(reverse if your EU only). The expansion is not in any way over priced for the amount of content that is being supplied with it along with all of the living story updates that will come with it in time. The cost of the Original Guild Wars game $50. Every expansion after that was also $50. Granted those games were stand alone, Guild Wars 2 is not. It is a unique game that is still building is world and story which is why the core game itself is coming with the expansion. The amount of content that is being supplied in the expansion is well worth $50 especially on a game that DOESN’T require a monthly sub.

tl;dr Buy the expansion.

EDIT: Apparently you code that you are supplied with acts as either a HoT upgrade or a new account with HoT. You don’t get a second account but this is still a good deal.

This is not the case…
currently buying gw2 as a whole is unavailable and replaced by this joint purchase of gw2 and HoT, meaning that you pay for BOTH game at once, even vets do.
BESIDE
as someone stated in another forum, if you buy a sandwich for 6$, you don’t simply get the cheese worth 6$ and bread for free, you pay for the WHOLE sandwich, and get the WHOLE sandwich
Here I’m paying for the Xpac AND GW2, which is awesome for new players, but as a vet, I only get the xpac?
But I still paid for the core game, so, tell me, where is that particular feature in my purchase?
I’m telling you, this is not “marketing” because, if it was, you’d still be able to buy gw2 stand-alone, as it is, they are tying gw2 to HoT… it’s illegal…

Forcing players to buy a product they already own to get a newer version of said product is called “tying” and is totally illegal… so… yeah.
Though it does says that it includes the base version, so I’m not sure it’s really tying in this case, but still…

Ooh this is so interesting!
Account number : Pepsi. 8907
IGN: I shot feather
Playstyle: Mainly pvp, some wvw roaming
Server: jade quarry
Role: scholar, instructor, tester
Time: during summer I’m on mostly between 11 – 13:30 and from 21:30/22:00 – 2:00 am

I have 1500 games in pvp half of them on mesmer with 260 hours on class alone. It’s not good, but I’ve been briefly taught by some good pvp players and while I still need to learn a lot, I think I know enough to show some things to new players or people who are not familiar with the class
Oh well, still, looking for playing with you guys!
Hours may vary!