Guild Wars 2

If you’re running fractals, you should be using neither staff nor greatsword. For any PvE content that isn’t open world, you need to be using a full damage build sword/focus sword/sword.

Also shatter is a horrible choice for PvE. Do not use it.

Alasteir.7031:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Alasteir.7031:

Diablo release says high. Not an mmo, but considering it is far less complex and requires much less work than an mmo, you are probably not looking very far nor being very objective if Anet is the worst you’ve seen. Hate to break it to you, but if anet was as incompetent as many whiners do, then they’d have flopped badly like swtor and the secret world did soon after they launched, but somehow, Anet is managing to balance no server downtime (rarely) very frequent patches, no sub fee, and yet still able to make a decent profit.

Different teams. The Anet server programmers are absolute wizards. The balance team, not so much.

Acknowledged on the different teams bit, however I’m skeptical that the balance team are the village idiots when every profession complains after every balance patch. In fact that seems pretty balanced. I don’t know, I guess I’m the type of person to realize the many complex variables that go into the gw2 combat considering things like active dodge, telegraphs, human cognitive load (there’s only so much you can pay attention to at once) biases, and the like that I’d blame my own lack of skill or a mistake on my part before blaming it on someone else (self-serving bias)

I understand your points about overall balance. I use a simpler metric.

In the patch notes, they said that the warden is now fixed. It’s not. It’s broken even worse.

This isn’t something that happens rarely. They regularly break skills that they didn’t intend to break, and they regularly completely fail to actually execute the fixes listed within their own patch notes.

These are the sort of things that aren’t subjective, that aren’t an opinion based matter of good or bad. They simply completely failed at doing what they said they did.

Alasteir.7031:

Diablo release says high. Not an mmo, but considering it is far less complex and requires much less work than an mmo, you are probably not looking very far nor being very objective if Anet is the worst you’ve seen. Hate to break it to you, but if anet was as incompetent as many whiners do, then they’d have flopped badly like swtor and the secret world did soon after they launched, but somehow, Anet is managing to balance no server downtime (rarely) very frequent patches, no sub fee, and yet still able to make a decent profit.

Different teams. The Anet server programmers are absolute wizards. The balance team, not so much.

This mini-dungeon is not accessible. Throwing boulders at the gong won’t let you in.

Savoy.6824:

So where did any dev say that

a) currently bugged
b) going to be Hot fixed

I’m not sure the point of all these threads if the above hasn’t been stated.

I received this information from Supcutie, who received it from Grouch.

I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary with my testing. In a full phantasm modifier build with a zerker amulet and eagle runes, it’kittenting the heavy golem for 4k crits. This is pretty much what I’ve seen in the past.

Is it possible that Misha did a daze burst and stacked you with 25 vuln?

Fraelin.7409:

In the screenshot below the Mesmer ( Misha ) not speced into any Phantasm damage traits has hit me ( Bunker Clerics Guardian ) with 2k toughness for 6.7k in 1 strike. After speaking with Misha, he has also suggested to me that something maybe broken with Warlock this patch as before he has never hit anyone that high, let alone a bunker Guardian.

After some testing I have noticed that the Warlock seems to be dealing the same damage to every type or Armour suggesting that the Warlock is hitting through toughness?

Can anyone shed any light on this? Any other unreal Warlock crits??

If so this needs to be fixed before the legends Tournament. Please investigate Anet.

Warlock scales 10% damage per unique condition on the target. It has always had the capability to do monstrous damage, but its rare to see it in PvP, usually you get that in PvE.

You probably had a significant condition load, and that turbocharged the iWarlock’s damage.

That being said, I’ll do a look-see and try to find discrepancies.

Wtf…your first post gets closed almost instantly, so you think it’s a bright idea to repost the exact same thing again?

What’s there to test? It’s just 1000 healing power for 5s when you interrupt someone. It’s worthless.

Yeah, that’s a new bug.

The reason that many people choose to do a shattery interrupt build is that stability will completely ruin your build in every way. With shatters though, you can take shattered concentration for fantastic aoe boon stripping.

There are ways to deal with stability in a more phantasm based build too though. You’ll need to take the pDisenchanter generally. Null field can work too, but it has a very long cooldown.

sendmark.4731:

PU condi is absolutely not the best, arguably the worst build you can run. Very little point control, poor in team fight. PU power may be interesting-ish, but does seem Lockdown, ranged shatter (staff/GS) still the best, and for something a bit easier also Sensotix condi build from 26 Dec still works decent.

Which is why I’m ranked ~100 running almost nothing but PU condie…

At any rate, take a look at the solo queue guide in my signature. I personally feel that PU condie is one of the strongest choices right now, but it’s by no means the only choice. I’ll probably test out some power block builds soon as well.

Far more important than your build choice is knowing how to play it, and knowing how to play it in a way that makes your team win.

DeadlySynz.3471:

The nerf is not 10%. Coming from a player who runs a complete glass/zerker build, the overall dps loss is about 25%. The auto attacks (non-crit) are about 15-20% lower and the actual crits are 30-40% lower. This was no where near a 10% dps loss for full zerker builds, not even close.

This is definitely not accurate. The nerf was absolutely limited to critical damage. Your non-critting attacks are doing precisely the same amount of damage they did before the patch.

While I also don’t agree with the nerf to critical damage, I do like to have accurate arguments. Yours doesn’t even flirt with accuracy.

mmm yess……bugfixes please.

The damage reduction on you stays at 50%. One of the defenders will randomly get the damage transferred to it.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’ve asked multiple times without the courtesy of a reply.

In-Game: Tinuwyn

Server: Devona’s Rest

Style: Dungeon/PVE/WvW

Play time Late night/Early morning PST

Title: Scholar

Interest: becoming a better Mesmer

I have replied multiple times with the fact that you have full guild memberships in this thread.

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’ve played a good number of mmos, but I’ve honestly not ever seen a dev team as…special as the ones here.

They quite literally fail to actually execute the fixes that they release in the patch notes themselves while at the same time introducing more bugs into the very skills they attempted to fix.

Honestly now, have you ever seen this before?

frifox.5283:

Did some more testing in SE p2’s 1st boss, Foreman Kreutzerova..

3 of her 4 skills have about 200ms to 400ms cast time and if you manage to land an interrupt in that window, the skill will get interrupted through the defiance and put it on 10s cd.

If you land an interrupt past that window and during the channeling of that skill, interrupt will not happen even though Halting Strike & Illusion of Vulnerabilty will trigger and deal damage and load 3 stacks of vuln on her as if interrupt did took place.

Average human reaction time is 200ms – 230ms so you would have to be extremely skilled to land such interrupt just by reading animation. I managed to hit daze mantra 230ms after animation started, but still failed to interrupt. I’m guessing network latency and/or skill lag is to blame. So, that or just memorize every single skill pattern and which skills can be baited out by something and only then you may take advantage of this trait effectively.

Here’s what you’re seeing.

Power block has no effect on a channeled skill. If you land an interrupt on a channeled skill normally (on a player) the skill goes onto a normal full cooldown, this is how it always does. If you land it on a boss though, since it’s a channeled skill power block does nothing, and the actual interrupt is blocked by defiance.

Kitt.2567:

Almost half, or a bit more than half of top100 are now filled with newcomers with full of luck who continuously just get good teammates by luck.

I definitely don’t think those new top100 with FULL OF LUCK would NOT be able to beat previously existed top100 people like Anas Tarcis, Kirito, The Mercy Goddess and etc in dueling situation though.

I think Anet should prevent people from being displayed in leaderboard if the user haven not had more than 150 matches or something.

Or, just make it grinding system, more you play more rank you get, regardless of lose.

This is to be expected at the very start. Leaderboards work on outliers being smoothed out by repetition. As these newcomers play more games, they’ll be more appropriately matched to their skill level. With a very low sample size though, strong outliers are to be expected.

ShibVicious.9681:

So you complete the reward track 3 times to get all the dungeon armour? This would take absolutely no time at all to do, especially when you compare it to the amount of time it’d take you to earn enough dungeon tokens to buy it by running the dungeon.

This is clearly not a bug and more poor wording in the description.

Again, this view of it is ignoring the rate at which weapons are acquired. The reward tracks are giving 3 weapons per piece of armor. Weapons are more costly than armor is, and that’s the biggest argument for this being not working as intended.

Jake.5017:

I tested it out a few times to check if it was only graphical but the health bar of any boss i keep hitting long enough does fall much faster over time.

Well, you’re going to want to do a review of your testing capabilities, because you’re wrong.

This is how fast hits in this game work. The damage floater keeps a running total of the damage, and this is what you’re seeing.

Also try watching your damage log now and then.

Advent.6193:

We can only hope it’s an oversight, silverfire. Using the same build, atm, and noticed that issue. (sobs)

Don’t worry, it’ll be fixed in 2 years. That’s just how long it took them to fix the signet distortion.

GS on warrior does a lot of cleave. If you pop endure pain at a good time and place, you can just stand and HB down all of the minions in a single go.

hendo.1940:

The new grandmaster domination trait is busted as hell, incredibly fun to use and very reliant on twitch reflexes for PvE.

We were able to score actual interrupts on Lupicus and it was hilarious yet weird to play in since it meant breaking our traditional patterns. Apparently works on the imbued shaman, berserker abomination and subject alpha too, so having a mesmer to interrupt dangerous skills so that other players can perform their skill rotations seems pretty solid. Plus their traditional reflect utility is good for fractals.

We’re thinking 30/30/0/0/10, 30/10/0/20/10 or maybe 15/20/0/25/10 might be pretty legit builds, more so the 30/30.

So… yeah. Mesmer might still honestly have a place in the dungeon meta despite getting its reflect damage hit slightly.

I’d be willing to bet when they hotfix it for thief skills/ressing/stomping/autoattacks they’ll hotfix out the pve bit too. I’ll keep my mouth shut where that’s concerned though, one can hope…

Mystogan.4157:

Why wouldnt it work in pvp? Im sure it does

It doesn’t.

JoaoFA.8475:

I see, what you say makes perfect sense.
Are there any alternatives, useful to the party, other than zerker/condition, as a mesmer?

No.

The basic requirement for being useful in a party is having high dps. Mesmer can supply condition removal, boon stripping, reflects, etc, but those don’t matter if you can’t carry your weight in dps.

Ok, so this advice might seem overly pessimistic, but it’s the best I can give right now.

Leveling a mesmer has always been a chore. However, this most recent patch changed it from being a chore to being a truly grueling and not fun experience. Mesmer is extremely dependent on traits, and now you get less traits for a longer time.

The best way to level a mesmer is to obtain books of knowledge to level it directly without actually playing the class. You can also use crafting to get levels for it as well. Once you get to level 70 or so, the class will be more playable, so you can get the last 10 levels normally and begin learning to play it then.

JoaoFA.8475:

Thank you all for taking your time to answer my question. I asked this because I have one conditionmancer and I have lots fun with him and the associated playstyle, my teams don’t complain (I never join speedruns/lfzerker).
I was looking for a mesmer build based on conditions as effective as the necromancer, since I have tried a few and they were always far behind the condition necromancer, in mass/single dps, survivability and practicality. My mesmer used to be sword/sword+gs, beserker mantra build, but honestely I find it boring as hell, and I have been looking for builds with staffs, scepters, torches, focus.
From what I read here, basically there is no decent alternative to shatter/mantra/phantom (zerker) I’m almost feeling depressed now… thank you all again.

There’s 2 problems with conditions on mesmer in pve. One is unique to mesmer, the other common to conditions.

Assuming 100% uptime on burning + 25 stacks of bleed, your dps is lower than 2 swordsman and autoattacks. This is a problem common to all conditions, they just don’t do high damage.

The issue with mesmer conditions is that you can’t do that sort of uptime. There’s too much randomness in what conditions are applied. Sometimes you’ll get a damage condition, but sometimes you’ll get a utility condition such as vulnerability, weakness, cripple, etc. Additionally, torment is ineffective on mobs, and confusion is even worse.

What this means is that the mesmer class condition (confusion) is worthless, so all the ways of applying that are null and void. Normally strong condition skills such as debilitating dissipation are bad in pve because of the randomness. You might get a bunch of bleeds, but you also might just get a minute of weakness. So on mesmer, you hit both problems. Not only will your conditions do low damage as always, you won’t be able to actually apply them efficiently either.

Dirame.8521:

Some of you sound so entitled it’s not even funny.

When you factor in ALL the stuff you get, it’s actually greater than you guys make it out to be.

The main thing that denotes this as a bug is the relative amounts of weapons/armor you get. Normally, weapons cost significantly more than armor pieces, but with the rewards tracks you end up getting 3x as many weapons than armor pieces.

Mek.2947:

I’ve been trying a torment build with nightmare runes (not bandwagoning…picked them before I knew about the bug)

Just a quick note. The bug is not with the runes exactly, it’s with the nightmare armor set.

This bug has been known about for a long time, but it’s only become an issue with the higher proc chances. Basically, some armor sets seem to have some sort of inherent runes preloaded onto them that somehow are expressed on the clones that you summon. The clones won’t get the benefits of runes that you actually put into the armor, it only works for armor sets that naturally come with runes in them already.

Nausicca.6038:

Jackums.3496:

Shatter is “viable” in tPvP. With a good team, twice the effort and half the reward.
Shatter is “viable” in WvW. With a good group, and very low solo roaming survivability.

I know there are plenty of people that want to look at the brighter side of things (ignorance is bliss, and all), but acknowledging the issue is more likely to get something done about it, and there is an issue. Shatter is mediocre in tPvP, and the Mesmer overall is easily one of the bottom two professions in this meta. Shatter is also terrible for WvW roaming without a good group. It’s in a relatively bad place right now.

While I agree with your tPvP opinion, I highly disagree with the WvW one. I solo roam and small group with a power shatter build and have no problem at all. Watching Vashury, Wing and Alissah’s videos comfort me in my opinion. Btw take a look at last Vash video on his channel. He’s dueling a condi PU build… naked. Shatter is definitly “terrible”.

You forget that skill matters. Vashury is an incredible player, so he can achieve success with a build that is objectively less effective.

JoaoFA.8475:

Well, thank you for answering but I wasn’t asking for an opinion whether condition is good or bad. I was asking for builds

Yeah, that’s not an opinion. If you run a condition necro in PvE, you are a bad player.

If you run a condition mesmer in PvE, you are an even worse player. Yes, you can ‘play how you like’, but that doesn’t change the fact that the way you play is horrible, and you deserve to be kicked from any decent party.

The conditionmancer is horrible in PvE. Condition mesmer is even worse.

So I’d love to see an actual fix for the warden’s problems…and then a second fix for the stuff you broke this time while trying to fix the stuff you broke the first time.

Hm, lets see. Any word on getting the warden fixed actually?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Shatter-and-sigil-of-intelligence/first#post3896072

reapex.8546:

Pyroathiest.4168:

reapex.8546:

The attack was used when comparing your attack damage with other classes. Such as a light armor with 3,000k Attack and Heavy armor with 3,000k attack. Power is class specific but Attack never was. It was useful when helping others. For example, asking what their Attack rating is for their class for mega raid events like slaying Wurm Eggs for Tequatl’s Power Team.

You’re wrong.

What am I wrong about? Surprise Anet let you respond which such a basic message lol

You’re wrong about the entire thing. Everything you said was wrong. Not entirely sure what you want to hear. Attack was never a useful stat for any reason. It is simply power + weapon damage, that’s it, and it was never used for anything.

See title. Steady weapons are weapons with significantly reduced damage, but no variation on their damage range. The use of steady weapons allowed players to accurately test the functionality of skills. They are now gone. Bring them back.

reapex.8546:

The attack was used when comparing your attack damage with other classes. Such as a light armor with 3,000k Attack and Heavy armor with 3,000k attack. Power is class specific but Attack never was. It was useful when helping others. For example, asking what their Attack rating is for their class for mega raid events like slaying Wurm Eggs for Tequatl’s Power Team.

You’re wrong.

Neurophen.9738:

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.

wat

I’m honestly surprised that 2 years into the game, people still don’t understand how damage summing floaters work.

When you use blurred frenzy, do you really think that you’re doing 3000 damage for each of the 8 hits? No, you aren’t, because the damage floaters simply keep a running total of the damage inflicted from that skill.

With the greatsword auto, the same thing is occurring.

Yeah, what you’ve got there is pretty accurate. The only question that remains is whether or not phantasmal haste is a higher damage boost than the 5 point minor in inspiration that gives 15%. I suspect that it’s mostly going to be a toss-up.

medohgeuh.4650:

Killua.8041:

What is this post about exactly? I haven’t seen any changes to my Mesmer. 0.o

Except the new traits of course.

Beats me. Nothing has changed for the worse.

Mesmer was fringe viable in fast running dungeon clears. Now it is not because the iWarden is even more broken and the mantra traits were moved.

Mesmer is only viable in WvW as a veilbot. Do I get tags when I run my zergmower build? Sure, but I’m useless except as a mobile veil package.

Can mesmer roam in WvW? Sure, but you’re slow with minimal chasing power.

Is mesmer viable in high level organized tPvP? No. Was it going to be with the new power block trait? Yes. Will it be after the nerf/hotfix? No.

Of the new traits, power block was going to be good, now it’s not. The distortion was going to be good, now it’s crap. The chaos trait is crap. The inspiration trait is even more crap. The torment trait, while very fun to play, is significantly worse than similar PU condition builds in its current form.

We also got vigor nerfed. Our shatters do less damage because of the ferocity change. Promised bug fixes such as the warden fix and IE fix and portal range fix haven’t materialized. iLeap is still broken, and there is no indication of it ever being fixed for the existence of this game.

shimmerless.4560:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Nm, forget I said anything, it’s getting hotfixed.

I’ll refrain from commentary here, because I’d get permabanned from these forums.

Can I ask what it is they intend to change, love?

Power block will no longer affect ressing and stomping. I’ve also heard that the devs consider blocking aa’s and thief skills as unintended behavior, so I’ll assume they’re removing that as well.

Esplen.3940:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Zepidel.5349:

anyone try the new +1000 healing power on interrupt GM trait?

Wouldn’t that instantly increase the regen ticks from your illusions that you pretty much have 100% up time on by ~100 per second?

what about our main heals?

I know some builds go 25 to grab the 15% phantasm dmg, its only 5 away but it is worth it?

100% uptime? That’s interesting. How are you proposing to get an interrupt on the dot every 4 seconds?

I don’t know the exact numbers, but rotate off of: Mantra of Diversion, Signet of Domination, and 2 of iWave/cStorm/tCurtain.

No. It’s not possible. It’s not even remotely possible or probable. The trait is absolute crap with no redeeming qualities.

Buying it puts a book into your inventory. Use the book.

Zepidel.5349:

anyone try the new +1000 healing power on interrupt GM trait?

Wouldn’t that instantly increase the regen ticks from your illusions that you pretty much have 100% up time on by ~100 per second?

what about our main heals?

I know some builds go 25 to grab the 15% phantasm dmg, its only 5 away but it is worth it?

100% uptime? That’s interesting. How are you proposing to get an interrupt on the dot every 4 seconds?

Nm, forget I said anything, it’s getting hotfixed.

I’ll refrain from commentary here, because I’d get permabanned from these forums.

cDKI.8352:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Power block confirmed, works on res/stomp.

Does that mean if you interrupt a stomp/res they can’t use it for 10 seconds?

Correct.