Guild Wars 2

Heh, for making vids I just stick with the standard ‘black flag’ package: fraps and adobe premier pro.

Synkronize.1285:

I have 10 in Dueling and 10 in Domination
For dueling the first trait i am using is Phantasmal fury for Domination i am using empowered illusions. Should i rely on shatters or do keeping Illusions up do more damage than shatters?

Those are good traits, stick with them.

You should be focusing on phantasms for your damage. Conditions are underwhelming no matter what, and shatters aren’t particularly good in PvE, and are absolutely horrible until you get multiple high level traits.

For more traits, I’d recommend going into inspiration. Once you get to master level in inspiration, you can trait the focus. That allows it to become a defense against projectile mobs as both the curtain and warden will reflect projectiles. Once you can take master dueling traits, go ahead and take sword cooldowns, giving you a faster recharge on blurred frenzy. Some would recommend you take deceptive evasion (clone on dodge), but that trait will actually hurt you if you’re playing with phantasms correctly.

Another person mentioned using the signet heal for higher uptime on phantasms. If you can get that skill, go for it. However, it costs 25 skill points, and I know that skill points aren’t always particularly plentiful at low levels. It’s a great skill for PvE though, so definitely pick it up once you feel you can.

Ok, let me try and explain why I’m really disappointed with the trait.

It runs into the exact same problem as the IE change of simply enhancing the mesmer’s effectiveness at a niche we’re already highly effective at, and doing nothing else. Will the trait create new builds (condie shatter)? Yes. Will those builds be strong? The question has to be asked ‘strong at what?’.

The condie shatter builds will be very strong in 1v1s, just like clone death builds are now. They’ll be able to kill people defending a point probably a bit faster than a clone-death build currently. They’ll still be completely useless against a decap engie, and actually potentially be worse against a guardian since you can block shatters, but you can’t block clone-deaths.

So, why was a shatter mesmer taken in teams? Shatter mesmer was taken because it had access to IoL, Portal, aoe boonstripping, and large aoe burst damage. The reason it isn’t taken now is because thieves eat it alive.

So what does condie shatter bring? Condie shatter can potentially bring IoL, Portal, and aoe boonstripping. It will, however, do literally almost no damage in fights. The torment will get cleansed off by the guardian or warriors. Additionally, in order to effectively get shatters on the point, it has to be on top of the point. Power shatters can take a greatsword to provide on-target illusion generation. All staff skills are point blank illusion generation. Even though condie shatter can go tanky, this still puts the mesmer into a worse location.

Ultimately, the question becomes ‘is it worth it to bring someone that does absolutely no damage in a team fight, but also brings portal, IoL, and aoe boon stripping?’. The answer to that question so far has been a big no, as you don’t see any super tanky mesmers providing that utility to teams anywhere.

This trait will provide a bit more variety to mesmer condition builds, but it won’t change anything. That’s why I’m extremely disappointed in the implementation.

Raunchy.6891:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Xaylin.1860:

Pyroathiest.4168:

I don’t think maimed is going to be good at all. That’s not bursty enough. That’s just another short duration, low intensity condition that everyone will just ignore.

It is sad that you can’t burst with Torment on its own but it might still be good enough. However, it will be a different playstyle than our current shatter builds. A more sustained one.

Use F1 for sustained damage which also got Confusion from Illusionary Retribution as cover up. Maybe add in Rending Shatters for even more conditions. Use F2 for burst. Ideally set up the burst with a close combat Sc#2 and pressure with Sc#3 after F2 hits. I’m quite confident it will work considering that you got the advantage of rabid or even settler gear over zerker. It probably won’t be more powerful than current shatter builds but that is not the point of the new traits anyway.

Yeah…I just don’t see it working out very well.

Assuming you have 50% condition duration, the torment lasts 6 seconds. A 3 clone shatter of this will do roughly 3500 damage in a build with quite high condition damage on a target that is moving the entire time. A normal shatter build will do that with 1 clone of a 3 clone shatter.

Basically, as usual, Anet failed miserably on the implementation of this. Shatters are by nature bursty. This is not bursty. This is not even sustain. This is just…weak.

You can’t really compare a power shatter build, to a condition shatter build. They use the same skills, yes, but they play completely differently and you know it. Also how is this not sustain? I’ll agree it’s not high damage, but what did you expect them to do? Give us some trait that makes all of our shatters hit like scepter #2?

What I look for in a shatter build is burst. Burst would be something like 2-3 stacks per clone, on a base 2 second duration. This allows you to actually build up potentially massive stacks for a couple really high ticks.

Mesmer doesn’t need sustained condition application. We have that from staff clones, duelists, dissipation traits, etc. What we lack is the ability to actually do an effect burst of conditions that isn’t reliant on horrible RNG (debilitating dissipation is the offender here).

Burst damage allows you to fight in a different way. It allows for strong opening movements, the capacity to finish people off rapidly, etc. Confusion is by nature a bursty condition, as it generally is applied at low durations in high stacks, but by itself it’s useless. With this trait Anet had the opportunity to make shatters potentially a true condition burst mechanic between confusion and torment, but they failed.

Neurophen.9738:

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

It has the downside of being quite weak in teamfights, but it’s a strong solo queue build for sure. There’s a lot of good reasons why you don’t see it at high ranks in team queue.

Xaylin.1860:

Pyroathiest.4168:

I don’t think maimed is going to be good at all. That’s not bursty enough. That’s just another short duration, low intensity condition that everyone will just ignore.

It is sad that you can’t burst with Torment on its own but it might still be good enough. However, it will be a different playstyle than our current shatter builds. A more sustained one.

Use F1 for sustained damage which also got Confusion from Illusionary Retribution as cover up. Maybe add in Rending Shatters for even more conditions. Use F2 for burst. Ideally set up the burst with a close combat Sc#2 and pressure with Sc#3 after F2 hits. I’m quite confident it will work considering that you got the advantage of rabid or even settler gear over zerker. It probably won’t be more powerful than current shatter builds but that is not the point of the new traits anyway.

Yeah…I just don’t see it working out very well.

Assuming you have 50% condition duration, the torment lasts 6 seconds. A 3 clone shatter of this will do roughly 3500 damage in a build with quite high condition damage on a target that is moving the entire time. A normal shatter build will do that with 1 clone of a 3 clone shatter.

Basically, as usual, Anet failed miserably on the implementation of this. Shatters are by nature bursty. This is not bursty. This is not even sustain. This is just…weak.

Synkronize.1285:

I’m a mesmer using Great sword and off hand sword and focus I’m level 31 but i can easily still get dominated especially if its a horde of 3 or a veteran mob around the world i’m unsure if i should be getting dominated like this or if i just need to up my skills or if my gear is terrible. Although i am not sure what constitutes good gear in this game as i just buy what i can afford of the trade thing.

If you’re not using gear with good stats on it, it can be very difficult.

The stats that you should look for on your gear are power, precision, and crit damage, in that order. Attempt to get a full set of armor, weapons, trinkets, and possibly runes in your armor to boost those stats.

However, since you’re leveling, you’ll obviously be outgrowing your gear fairly quickly. I’d recommend sticking to either green or blue quality gear, and updating it every 10 levels or so. That keeps your stats reasonably current.

Your weapon choice is good, stick with that. Try to open fights with temporal curtain to group them up, then iWarden, leap/swap and blurred frenzy, and that should kill most normal mobs. If you get into trouble, swap to greatsword and kite around using your iZerkers.

What traits have you been using?

Zylonite.5913:

In the large 80+ zerg battles, the servers drop down the calculation/processing to exotic level so that there is less overhead. So it makes no difference. For roaming solo it might make a difference but skill comes first.

Yeah…you’re definitely wrong.

skcamow.3527:

Just FYI all, I got some clarification on Disruptor’s Sustainment and Maim the Disillusioned:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dev-livestream-Ready-Up-March-28-12pm-PvP-Rewards-Next-phase/first#post3822725

NOT excited about DS, but maimed could be really good.

Yeah, I called that on DS.

I don’t think maimed is going to be good at all. That’s not bursty enough. That’s just another short duration, low intensity condition that everyone will just ignore.

jarthur.3649:

okay so the idea for the build was a boon share that could protect itself by apply conditions through shatter/clone death.

This concept is reasonable.

jarthur.3649:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgUQNArdRlUzpYtFoxCNUrNSYSRwP+JFQX6oes9s/dA-zUCBohgYiAIrQ0CBimGMNtIasFhFRjVPjIqWfELAwBw7dv7vH49jP+4jPud3d3d3d3SBAxyK-w

This build is not.

Where are your boons coming from? You have consistent access to regen and retal….and that’s it. You’re using runes with an icd of 15s and a heal with a cooldown of 45 seconds, that’s an incredibly poor choice. Why scepter? Why greatsword? Why veil?

Thedenofsin.7340:

Phaeton.9582:

There are a lot of external factors that could affect Mesmer viability however. Matchups between all classes will change substantially. If a build arose which shut thieves out (which is very possible), Mesmer would immediately be back in a more robust spot.

The only way that would happen is if that ‘new build’ shut down thief stealth. Otherwise, that new build would work doubly well against Mesmers and shut them out as well.

Sensotix – ANet appears to be reluctant to nerf anything. Assuming nothing gets nerfed, what buffs do you think Mesmers need in order to become viable?

There are multiple mesmer builds that will rip thieves apart (read: rip any class/build apart) any time of the day. Unfortunately, those builds make sacrifices for that ability.

You can either have a build that’s stellar in a 1v1, or you can have a build that’s highly mobile, or you can have a build that’s useful in team fights with good utility picks and aoe damage spread. You don’t get them all, you barely can even handle two. That’s the problem.

While there are builds that destroy thieves, a good thief won’t bother to stick around and get destroyed. He’ll go de-cap your point and be back at mid before you’ve figured out he’s gone.

Silentshoes.1805:

I have been playing sPvP since the beginning, and I have forgotten that in WvW fights, you can meet many people who have ascended gear that is more powerful than you have.

Shades of Wow and Rift.

I saw a condi mesmer spec with ascended and 2600 condition damage.

Now, if I am fighting him with 1700, I am at a disadvantage that is tough to overcome if he is skilled as well, right?

The difference between a full set of ascended gear and a full set of exotic is going to be a couple hundred on the major stat, and less on the minor stats. The difference doesn’t even begin to approach the 900 stat difference you cited.

Now, while a couple hundred stats is significant, it’s far less significant than the effects of player skill. All else being equal, the person with more stats wins, but very minor differences in skill level between the two players rapidly cause the stat difference to be irrelevant.

Aestallon.7382:

Confusing Cry with Illusionary Persona will not grant Retaliation if illusions are not summoned. Distortion, however, will properly give its effect (also called Distortion) without illusions.

Ah, good reminding me on that one. You can add that shattered conditions also doesn’t work with IP.

skcamow.3527:

BTW pyro why you using a different account to post with

Apparently insulting the devs is against the forum CoC. Who knew?

skcamow.3527:

Pyroathiest.4168:

@Ansau: That build however has the disadvantage of being mostly useless. You have no crit damage, no power, no crit chance, no damage boost from Dom I. You’ll hit like a wet noodle, so lets see what else it can do.

If you take shattered conditions, you can do some pretty high output aoe condition removal. Unfortunately, that’s totally it. That’s all you can do.

If you take restorative illusions, then you’ll be hard to kill. Unfortunately, you’ll have minimal utility and still no damage.

As I said before, you ‘can’ run builds like that, but just because you’ve done it doesn’t make them any good.

Can you elaborate on why that particular build would do no damage? Not speaking from a build effectiveness point of view here, just the prospect of doing damage with a trait spread like that. I can maybe see your point in a PvP setting but WvW roaming? Seems there is an assumption that spending heavy trait points in lines other than domination/dueling automatically get written off like this. I don’t think it necessarily means you hit like a wet noodle. Are you making assumptions on the gear?

I have no idea what Ansau is running, but I threw something together for illustration – all berserker gear with those traits. I suppose you could even swap some cavalier’s in there for more toughness and still keep around 40% crit chance.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNAsdWlknpQtdqxRNcrNSc6B0X+zR9Q7g/7lKwbA-zUBBYfCiZmFRjtMsIas6aYKXER1kCIixAA-w

Well, there’s multiple reasons why the build wouldn’t be particularly good. Firstly, in order to achieve attack stats that are close to a normal shatter build, you’re required to gear up incredibly glassy. Your stats still aren’t quite up to what a normal shatter build would have, so you’re more glass and less cannon.

You miss out on domination I, so your basic burst will automatically be 20% weaker. That’s a very significant change. You also miss out on the option of taking shattered concentration. While you’ve taken the Disenchanter to help with boon stripping/condition management, you can’t always rely on it to strip the right boons at the right time. The reason Disenchanter works better in a phantasm/condie build is that those are both sustained damage builds, where the Disenchanter has time to chew away at boons. A shatter build doesn’t have that luxury.

There are other more indirect consequences to damage output as well. Since your clone generation is limited to weapon skills and mirror images, you have only 1 consistent burst every 35 seconds. What losing DE does is make a shatter build suddenly become incredibly predictable. You can’t maintain a high illusion count, because people will just mow through them. You’re forced to burst up illusions and then shatter rapidly. This telegraphs your burst enormously, making it much easier to dodge compared to a normal shatter build that is basically capable of shattering at any time.

Additionally, your build sacrifices a quite hefty amount of defense as well. You don’t have blink, and your on-demand condition removals are tied to your offense. This means that if you get hit with something nasty like long duration immob, chill, weakness, or cripple shortly after bursting, you’re pretty much dead.

There are some other slightly more indirect issues as well. You don’t have any effective way of generating point-blank illusions other than leap/swap and mirror images. Phase retreat moves you away, making a full output IP shatter with it not really feasible. Taking greatsword instead of staff would help with that, but then you’d be sacrificing even more mobility and defense. Lack of point-blank illusions when not in sword means that you have almost no potential for bursting when in staff, and this hurts your dps rotation even more.

Basically, shatters rely on a fast burst cycle of high burst every 10-15 seconds. Sustained damage inbetween those bursts is typically rather low, and anything that delays the burst cycle makes it easier for an opponent to survive. DE allows you to maintain that burst cycle no matter what weaponset you have or what utilities you’ve taken. Dropping DE means that unless you build in a really specific way, your burst cycle will be slowed down significantly, making it difficult to kill anyone paying attention.

Nettle.9025:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Nettle.9025:

I would say that, yes, lockdown is the highest skillcap of Mesmer. You need better reflexes and skill usage awareness than a shatter mes needs, and it is more unforgiving towards mistakes.

You’re confusing high skill cap and hard to play.

Something being hard to play (has a high skill floor) doesn’t automatically mean it has a high skill cap. The 2 concepts are entirely unrelated.

I’m not confusing them. I genuinely believe it has a similar skill cap to shatter (for different reasons), but a higher skill floor, and so I consider it the harder build to play overall. I can admit though that I might be slightly biased because I’ve had more practice with shatter.

While that may be true, your post was either simply unclear or intentionally misleading. Your wording directly conflated hard to play with high skill cap.

Nettle.9025:

I would say that, yes, lockdown is the highest skillcap of Mesmer. You need better reflexes and skill usage awareness than a shatter mes needs, and it is more unforgiving towards mistakes.

You’re confusing high skill cap and hard to play.

Something being hard to play (has a high skill floor) doesn’t automatically mean it has a high skill cap. The 2 concepts are entirely unrelated.

IP should not be moved.

The underlying concept of grandmaster traits was supposed to be that they are build defining traits. As it happens, very few traits actually fit this description, but IP is one of the few that does. Taking IP defines your build. That is why it is a grandmaster.

Power lock, confounding suggestions, PU, even shattered conditions and restorative illusions are all great grandmasters in theory because they are build defining. As it turns out, those last two only define horrible builds, but it’s the concept that counts for this discussion.

Weaker grandmasters are things like the dueling traits. No build is defined by a boring % boost or a random quickness proc.

So, IP is fine where it is. It fits the concept of the line that it’s in, it fits the concept of a grandmaster trait.

@Ansau: That build however has the disadvantage of being mostly useless. You have no crit damage, no power, no crit chance, no damage boost from Dom I. You’ll hit like a wet noodle, so lets see what else it can do.

If you take shattered conditions, you can do some pretty high output aoe condition removal. Unfortunately, that’s totally it. That’s all you can do.

If you take restorative illusions, then you’ll be hard to kill. Unfortunately, you’ll have minimal utility and still no damage.

As I said before, you ‘can’ run builds like that, but just because you’ve done it doesn’t make them any good.

In my opinion, all Mesmer builds have a comparable and effectively unreachable skill cap. The way that cap manifest itself is different for each build.

Lockdown builds have a uniquely high skill floor, which can be related to, but has no inherent relation to skill cap.

BlackDevil.9268:

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Supercharged Mantras:
Mantras are now instant cast.

That would be the most hilariously overpowered trait in the game. Mesmers would be absolute gods for the 3 days it would take to hotfix it out

I don’t see it been over powered, If it is under dueling as a 30 point GM. You either have the choice of going for more utility or damage.
If you still think it will be over powered, please explain to enlighten me.

Well, if you would run full tank with a meleetrain then healing 5 targets for 2.6-3k each every 3 seconds would come down to being pretty op.

Every mesmer would also pick restorative mantra’s combined with the mantra healing and mantra of pain and just spam those 2. That’s some massive healing you would get from there. I don’t think any class can outdamage that healing.

I actually ran some basic calcs. Takig 4 mantras and the mantra cooldown trait, and literally spamming all your utile and heal constantly would generate a self heal of 3000 hps, and aoe of about 2000 hps. It would be like healing signet x5 in a 5 target aoe.

LordByron.8369:

3) WWW implications? anet Always said they wouldn t let heavy users trasmute light skins in order to let people know te profession at first glance….
How is that different with town clothes? its not good having to click any profession to see wich class they are…

There are so many different varieties and looks of armor, it’s not really anything that clues you in on a character’s class.

What does clue you in are things like sound effects as they use skills, the weapons they’re using, are they followed by minions, what skills themselves have they used, etc. In addition, in order to fight someone effectively, it’s very wise to click on their bar to view food buffs and/or signets they have equipped, that way you don’t get blindsided by something like a signet of spite, or you notice the thief has 4 signets and is about to do a might stack combo on you.

tl;dr: No, no effect.

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Sarrs.4831:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

Since you failed to respond to my first post, Ill post again. DE is not a necessity for any playstyle or any game mode in guild wars 2. It is a crutch, pure and simple. Does it make certain things easier to handle? Sure it does. Are there other just as useful traits/weapon skills/utilities for handling those same things? Yes there are. Saying that without a certain trait, the class is significantly weaker is the reason why it is a trait in the first place… Mesmer is perfectly capable of performing at the top level in pve/pvp/wvw without this trait, just because you haven’t figured out doesn’t mean it isnt possible.

Um.

Have you figured out how? I’m genuinely curious how someone can play a mesmer viably at top level spvp without using DE.

By choosing other traits aside from Deceptive Evasion? I can’t even tell if this is a serious question..

Standard shatter builds are not viable without DE. On-clone-death builds are not viable without DE.

Lockdown builds occasionally sacrifice DE for the increased return of the lockdowns/interrupts. However, these builds are absolutely weaker in terms of maintaining sustained pressure or effectively fighting against high aoe due to the lack of clone production.

Phantasm builds are better played without DE, and most phantasm builds don’t take DE as a result.

In short, you’re completely wrong.

Edit: I noticed that you’ve claimed to have played most of 1k hours in PvP and WvW on a pure shatter spec without this trait. I’d like to make a note that just because you’ve done it doesn’t mean that it’s any good to do. I can play a phantasm build without any phantasm traits and using scepter/torch+scepter/torch, but that doesn’t make it a wise decision.

Simonoly.4352:

Since about 2 or 3 weeks ago I’ve noticed that Illisionary Counter does not block various attacks now. I’m finding it difficult to nail down which specific attacks these are, but it often seems to happen at random.

One instance that I am certain of is the giant wurm north of Bay on a borderland map of WvW. I’ve been playing WvW for well over a year now and have always been able to block the rock that the wurm hurls at you. However, with the last living story update that no longer works and the rock goes through the block to cause immediate damage.

It would be nice if one of you nice red guys could confirm if any changes been made to Illusionary Counter or other active block skills to account for this? I’ve actually heard mention that other classes might be experiencing the same thing.

Some skills are unblockable.

While I agree with the general sentiment here, I’ve never heard of someone hacking a gate open. Flying Mesmer portals are one thing, but hacking open a gate? I find this questionable.

frifox.5283:

Equip Mirror of Anguish and Halting Strike. Interrupt the ele while he has Shocking Aura on him and you have a chance to proc the bug. It’s possible that the bug has been fixed though.

Yeah, this bug is old news, and it’s not a bug with halting strike anyway. If I recall correctly from Tyler’s venture into the bug thread, it’ll be fixed on the feature patch.

Black Box.9312:

Harper.4173:

Black Box.9312:

I’ve been all for this idea since day one. Having direct access to percentage-based damage modifiers makes power creep too easy. They’ve fixed part of it with the crit damage rework, now they need to do this as well.

Fixed what ? Nerfing damage across the board for all classes is somehow a fix now?
It could have been a fix if they only transferred the stats and didn’t nerf the damage.

Being able to scale critical damage directly is problematic because it makes balancing much more difficult. By scaling it with an indirect modifier now they can simply adjust the ratio to increase or decrease damage by smaller increments.

And obviously just changing the scaling of critical damage isn’t the solution, but it was a necessary first step to prevent power creep.

That makes 0 sense. Just because it’s a % doesn’t mean you can’t apply math to it like any other number.

People keep saying that HoD has multiple maps queued, etc, etc. If that is actually true, then HoD players must be the absolute worst group of WvWers in the game.

HoD is beating NSP and CD, sure, but they’re not winning hard compared to some other matchups. YB and FA are both winning their respective matchups harder than HoD is winning theirs, and both YB and FA are in higher tiers (yeah, I know SoR is skewing things). HoD obviously isn’t even close to this all-conquering beast that people seem to think it is.

BlackDevil.9268:

-snip-

/thread right here. Perfect. Would need tweaks to w/e for balancing ofc, but the idea is sound.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Supercharged Mantras:
Mantras are now instant cast.

That would be the most hilariously overpowered trait in the game. Mesmers would be absolute gods for the 3 days it would take to hotfix it out

Getting to a ranking within some sort of deviation is skill. Past that, it’s luck. I’d say that probably your rank +/- 100 spots or so is the range in which luck dictates where you’re placed.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Erm.. How do we increase our guild size? o_O We hit a cap.

Whoops. Fixed.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Fay, this is the build I have been running lately in dungeons and WvW in groups. I call it the Dazed and Confused Mesmer. Although the condition damage is not high the spike damage is pretty decent. It is the closest thing I found to a GW1 Mesmer in this game – why – it interrupts everything!!!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgEQRAra7dlknpTtlqxYNcrNScSB0lOpHmu0nukCcnbA-zEDBYfRGbZIjk3BiIIzECJM5pIastBFRjVVLpqFYqSRW5CwbQamUARMGA-w

Dusty, this thread isn’t the place to post your build, it’s a compilation point of guides and build threads. If you would like your build to be included, make a thread for it and link to that instead.

Why is this in the profession balance forums?

Regardless, /signed

serialkicker.5274:

Call me crazy, but i’d love shortbow on mesmer

I can’t support the idea of shortbow for mesmer on principle.

That being said, launching rainbow-farting unicorns is awesome.

Xaylin.1860:

Pyroathiest.4168:

I can see using Triumphant Distortion at grawl ele and maybe dredge clown car. That’s about it.

I’ll use it in the new LS when the next vegetable goes bonkers and invades us.

Any idea when the podcast will be ready?

We actually ran into an odd issue where my mic wasn’t somehow getting to the stream for the last 10 minutes or so, so were going to have to do a bit of re-recording, but hopefully by Wednesday or so.

Take a look at the Solo Queue guide in my signature. The overall meta really won’t change at all after the patch, so it should still be relevant, and I’ll update it if the torment shatter really somehow is game-changing.

Bunda.2691:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Honestly, this is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. I wouldn’t endorse any new weapon idea unless it’s mainhand pistol.

I actually disagree, even though MH pistol would be cool. As it is right now mesmer essentially has four melee skills: sword auto, blurred frenzy, illusionary counter, and illusionary riposte, plus mind wrack with illusionary persona. (There are others that are semi melee, like illusionary wave and staff auto, but they aren’t really melee.) This is across all weapons and slot skills. All other skills are ranged.

So while I’d like to see a main hand pistol as much as the next person, I’d rather prefer some greater variety in melee gameplay, as suggested by the OP.

This aligns well with most other classes, the exception being thief and warrior, both of which are extremely one-dimensional with regards to how their weapons work.

Mesmers have a melee power weapon, long range condition and power weapons, and then scepter…the kitten child of a midrange condition weapon and a power weapon that ends up being so-so at both. What we need is a mainhand pistol to be the mid-range power weapon, so that scepter can actually be a condition weapon.

Looking at other classes, you see this overall concept mirrored. You have scepter/axe with necro, and then dagger for power close range. Ranger sword is close range, then sBow and axe as the two midrange weapons. Elementalist swaps out weapons for attunements, so you have daggers being close range everything, scepter mid range everything, staff long range everything. Guardians are sorta an odd one out due to their lack of condition anything. Warriors are also a bit different as they have a focus on melee weapons, and so fulfill most of the roles in pure melee. Thieves go back to the normal archetype with different combinations of weapons instead. P/D is midrange condie, P/P is midrange power (shh, I know it sucks), sBow is both midrange power and condie, S/x is close range power, etc.

Mesmer is the only one that really lacks a midrange power weapon, and instead has the functionality of both power and condie smushed into one sub-par weapon. We need mainhand pistol.

Bumbler.7581:

In trying to think of ways to make these viable for PvE, the only useful one seems to be:

Dueling: Triumphant Distortion – Gain 3s of distortion upon killing an enemy. No cooldown.

It will make us very tanky in dungeon trash, and not to mention we will likely get tons of distortion uptime on the Grawl Fire Elemental Shaman. Since trash dies so easily when hidden behind blinds/reflects/aegis, the only real time I can see myself swapping to this is the fire elemental. Will you guys be swapping back and forth from Empowering Mantras and Triumphant Distortion much?

I can see using Triumphant Distortion at grawl ele and maybe dredge clown car. That’s about it.

I think an important point that the op failed to clarify is that a change like this wouldn’t (read: shouldn’t) be an actual nerf to damage output, but instead of having simply damage boosting traits, cause the player to actually use the traits to get the damage boost.

Warrior definitely isn’t the only offender here. Look at empowering mantras on Mesmer. % boost traits don’t get any more boring than that trait. It actually gives you a damage bonus for not using your utilities.

If these borin passive boosts were replaced with active effects that boost damage instead, not only would it make pve more interesting, but it would also raise the potential skill cap for dealing hgh damage, and allow highly skilled players to do even higher damage than just with the boring % boosts.

Honestly, this is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. I wouldn’t endorse any new weapon idea unless it’s mainhand pistol.

You can test the mechanics of distortion right now. It doesn’t stack at all, it simply refreshes to the new applied duration.

There is precedent for an on-shatter effect instead of a per-clone effect. Vigorous revelation only works if you have a clone or IP, but it provides a fixed amount of it or per shatter, not per clone.

Back up top with you!

Wonderful idea here, needs to happen.

zexion.5842:

Pyroathiest.4168:

zexion.5842:

Ah sorry I was reading Phantasmal healing wrong. Read it as five sec of regen ticks every 3 seconds. I’ll fix that.

For ether feast I already showed the bonus healing for the extra illusions. I left it off my comparison at the bottom just for ease since the scaling isn’t 1:1 for that portion and the bonus healing is pretty awful.

You mathed wrong on ether feast. You have it as 1300 for the main heal and 130 more per illusion, when it’s 1000 for the main heal and 100 more per illusion for a total of 1300 with 3 illusions.

Nope. You get 300 healing power for going 30 in inspiration so it would have a base of 300.

Ah, if you’re counting the 30 points in inspiration, then ok. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense though, since any good PvE build will be a minimum of 20 points in, if not 25.

zexion.5842:

Ah sorry I was reading Phantasmal healing wrong. Read it as five sec of regen ticks every 3 seconds. I’ll fix that.

For ether feast I already showed the bonus healing for the extra illusions. I left it off my comparison at the bottom just for ease since the scaling isn’t 1:1 for that portion and the bonus healing is pretty awful.

You mathed wrong on ether feast. You have it as 1300 for the main heal and 130 more per illusion, when it’s 1000 for the main heal and 100 more per illusion for a total of 1300 with 3 illusions.

While I agree with the general statement here, I feel the need to make a few corrections.

Ether feast has 2 components: Main heal and per illusion. The main heal scales 1:1 and each illusion scales .1, so with 3 illusions the entire heal maxes out at a 1.3 scaling, so with 1000 healing power you add 1300 to the heal.

Both regeneration and signet of the ether are ticking skills. This means you can’t just look at the scaling for a full view.

Signet of the ether (with 3 clones, as this is best case scenario) ticks at .125 per tick, one tick every 3 seconds, for a total over 20 seconds (to match ether feast) of .833, or an increase of 833. However, since the buff only lasts 5 seconds, you’d only get 1 tick of this….so yeah, it’s actually pretty horrific.

Regeneration is actually the one healing effect in the entire game that scales amazingly with healing power. Regeneration ticks once per second, not once every 3 seconds, at .125 per tick, so over 20 seconds it rounds out to at 2.5 modifier, or an increase of 2500 hp over 20 seconds. Again though, since the buff only lasts 5 seconds, you’d only get the increase for 5 ticks, a total of 625.

Geff.1930:

Evan Lesh.3295:

It’s an interesting idea to visually show selection areas, I can’t think of a game that has done this off the top of my head.?

Smite,
Dragon’s Nest,
Continent of the 9th,
Cube World,
Neverwinter Online,
RaiderZ,
DC Universe,
Elder Scrolls Online

I can’t speak for most of these, but Dragon Nest is an entirely different combat system built from the ground up to support that type of targeting, and it works well because you don’t have actual target-locked skills.

ESO has target locked skills, and when fights get messy, the targeting sucks massively. It’s really difficult to maintain a consistent target.

Ok, just did some testing with winds of chaos.

So if you just use the skill, it goes from you, hits target, and then bounces to a 2nd target. Assuming you are that 2nd target, you’ll gain a boon.

If you reflect the bolt instead of simply receiving it, things get a bit weird. If the bolt is from a clone, then it will bounce off of you, providing no boons, and go hit a nearby friendly target. If no friendly target is nearby, it’ll hit whatever friendly target it can find. I was able to get the bolt to get farther than 1500 range to hit a friendly target.

If the bolt was from you…then it doesn’t work. At all. Instead of reflecting it, like the clone bolt was, it’ll be absorbed, neither providing you with boons nor bouncing to any more targets, friendly or otherwise.

Well, I haven’t experimented with this functionality much, so I’m just going off of what Tyler said, and that would be that reflected friendly missiles can only hit friendly targets, so you’d potentially sacrifice some dps for additional might stacking.