Guild Wars 2

S3 is great, once you learn it’s knack. You can cancel cast the clone animation allowing an instant swap/instant immob, it takes a bit of practice, but is far more reliable and cuts off a 1/4-1/2 second casting.

This is indeed not correct, but cancelling sword #3 can still be good to do as to get another autoattack where you would usually aftercast it. Also with sword #3 remember that you should not always use it immediately, especailly since it is very very likely to bait out a dodge. Instead you wait and use it to immob or just teleport to confuse the enemy.

I’d advise you to start with the basic mesmer stuff first, like getting better at when to shatter and such. F2 you oftentimes don’t want to use with many clones up, as you will probably need those clones for one of the more important shatters.

In terms of distortion, which you say you have trouble with, you should use it when you are going to take damage rather then when you have taken damage. One reason for this is that if the opponent it for example throwing a chill nade on you, it will likely kill your clones thus shortening your distortion. This is especailly true for sword build, since you probably have the trait that resets shatters on 50% hp. Something to remember as a general thing is that you can ddodge just before the distortion to get an extra second of it. Usually you can regen the lost endurance withing the invulnerability duration (almost).

Diversion can be even harder to use than distortion but there are a couple of ways you can use it. Either you can make use of illusionary persona and inteuupt some skill, for example a heal, a prybar, a burning speed ETC. The other good option you have is to be aware of your clones’ positions (this is really important always) and line up a “dazetrain” by letting your clones run at your opponent in a train to get multiple dazes/ interrupts.

When opening a 1v1, it depends on what class you are up against (of course). But as a general thing, you shouldn’t be bent on using a classic shatter open that you see in combo videos or whatever- those are often not the best way to win a duel. Vs most classes, it is good to pressure from range with your greatsword and wasting their cooldowns. Then you can go in with sword and try to for example immob into mirror blade. Something to keep in mind is that you cannot trade with ANYONE. Therefore you need to avoid high damage skills and pressure them back as well as you can.

Some builds on some classes are of course best duelled differently. Vs power ranger, for example, it is usually a good idea to ot pressure from range as you will die. Quick bursts and stealth as well as distortion reflects are important in this matchup. Something to remeber vs some classes (mesmer, theif etc) is that prestige is often better used in melee range to get the blind off.

If you play mesmer decently, you will have little trouble in most situations. The problem really arises when fighting decent thieves. This is were you need to use cooldowns and terrain efficiently and with habit. VS DP panic stike, really try to interurpt their heartseeker in black powder combo- it will really screw them over. When you have played a mesmer for a while and perhaps duelled thieves you will also get a feel for when they will jump on you. If you can predict and dodge a steal this way you have a much bigger chance to win. Vs most classes, thieves especially, you will need to use blurred frenzy defensively.

After you are confident with mesmer, you should try learning more advanced techniques such as blurred frenzy stow and illusionary wave cancel to bait dodges. But i think you have a while to go first.

Phew, tha t was an essay and a half. =S

Jim Hunter.6821:

Quadox.7834:

In terms of wolf pets being telegraphed, you can stow the pets (interrupt) using f3 or switch mode iirc. Skilled rangers can use this to waste opponent’s dodges or similar.

You can stow your pet while in combat? That’s a neat trick. You should explain how you do that to all the rangers that have been asking for that ability since launch for those situations where having your pet out is a detriment.

Sorry i clarified what i meant in the parenthesis “stow the pets (interrupt)”, so i think you actually know exactly what i meant. The reason i used the term “stow” is because the effect is similar to that of stowing you own weapons (interupting your own skill).

Anyhow, it is a useful thing that rangers NEVER do. You can even stow and press f1 again to bait out different attacks from the pet (fairly on demand moa heal for 3,5k for example), albeit annoying to do. It can be annoying, yes, but the skillcap is definately there and has not yet been touched even remotely. Meanwhile good mesmers are learning to use blurred frenzy stow to avoid attacks and illusionary wave stow with precise timing to bait dodges.

Lol @ peopel comparing it to killshot, this is an autoattack not a profession skill o.o
For the record, i have been hit by 6k from 1 hit by this skill (just a fun fact).

I do not think power ranger is op in the least, i do however think it needs changes. I get that people like eurantien defend it since they play it, but you have to realise how incredibly low the skillfloor of this build is. The simplicity and power of the longbow is only acceptable because of how the flaws with the ranger’s profession mechanic and offhand weapon (greatsword probably). The longbow is not weak- the rest of the profession is.

In terms of wolf pets being telegraphed, you can stow the pets (interrupt) using f3 or switch mode iirc. Skilled rangers can use this to waste opponent’s dodges or similar.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i’ll tell you what… remove the ability of a stealthed character from “finishing” a downed character, and then i’ll agree that stealth should break target tracking for channelled skills.

anything that prevents capturing a point should also prevent / break a “finish him” channel, too, including the “start to channel finisher, then port away, then port back just before the channel ends” exploit that i’ve heard about.

Um … that’s called safestomping. Every class has one. Whether you go mist, or invul. Actually the stealth safestomp is the most fair of them all, since you know, you can CC the thief, while you can’t push an engi or misted ele.

Then there is necro who can use an elite to safestomp :P

People just like to defend their main classes in this game, and it is understandable. But it doesn’t change the fact that power necro with chill of death realies on it and sigils to do its damage quite heavily. This is bad design and should be removed. Period. It doesn’t matter if necro is “worse” than other professions- don’t tackle broken with more broken. One reason why condi necro for example isn’t meta anymore is because dd ele and (mainly) shoutbow warrior drive every condition based spec out of the meta. These are things to look at to buff necromancer, but either way chill of death needs to be changed.

Midnight , Illusionary riposte/counter and mimic need improvements or changes, the others are fine (from pvp perspective). Illusion of life is strong, mind stab and illusionary leap are very as well.

Sadrien.3470:

Now thieves are jerked w/o stealth so mesmers can rule pvp!, except we need stealth too

Lockdown mesmer daze mantra hype?

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Quadox.7834:

People like testing and discovering things. I agree however that small things like the might nerf doesn’t create fun.

I gotta be fair, I do too, and I frequently build something stupid just for the sake of it…

But in the end, it does not remove the boredom I have playing conquest for such a small incentive – and that is the point I wanna get across. Even if all professions had a viable role for any kind of play (from the bottom to top tier), it would still be the same ol’ gamemode. The only redeeming factor is the dynamic enviroment created by the players, but with such a small community, you more than often run into the same names

Changes to skills, mechanics and traits produce fun and variation. Leaderboards and rankings produce long term commitment. We need both, so i agree.

Fix the bugs and this might be good! (Shadow refuge and whatnot)

Cleansing ire is one of the reasons why longbow is used by every warrior ever, so for the sake of diversity either longbow or cleansing ire needs a change. I had an idea making pindown the burst skill for longbow instead, but i don’t know warrior so yeah.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Amir.1570:

Plays Engi/Ele, cries about cleansing ire. Fail.

You know that D/D eles are being pushed out of the meta because of shoutbows right? Because shoutbows do everything better with arguably less skill required.

There is no meta. There is about 3 teams in the world who try hard this game. And then 50 other people who take it semi serious.

As for shoutbow, yeh its the easiest spec in game. Even i can play it ok

There is always a meta. In this game it is mostly formed by teams switching up comps and classes to counter other teams. Then people adapt from that (condi necro vs power necro). Why people choose certain classes or builds depends on how strong they are and how easy to play they are mainly. Don’t be delusional. meta exists even if the scene is small. =)

Khenzy.9348:

Stealth is now more counterable? One of the best ‘changes’ to ever happen to this game! Fix it with Shadow Refuge and you’re good to go. Haha!

Seriously now, they seem to be trying new stealth counters, which is a good thing, a very, very good thing.

I agreeeeeee, i honestly don’t mind if my main (mes) is affected either.

The main thing to look at with stealth though, is the ability for a whole team to camp in stealth thanks to black powder and then suddenly stealth burst a person from another team. In high level it becomes a matter of who stealths the longest.

Narcarsis.5739:

Mefiq.7039:

stealth doesnt stack. If i get 2 sec stealth and prolong it with shadow Refuge it will end after 2 sec anyway, Rly fun patch, i can see the trend right now, 1st making shortbow 5th skill unusable due to “no valid path”, now breaking stealth, lets nerf thiefs on HP and DMG and later lets delete thiefs why not, i know its fun to break them patch after patch but there should be end to it.

Just want to clear the misconception of them “nerfing” shortbow 5. The port changes did not affect any port locations, it just prevents you from wasting initiative on a port that would fail anyway. The port changes made in that patch were a quality of life change that significantly improved the game – not the opposite. Stop spreading misinformation please.

Yeah people are complaining at anet when that was actually an amazing change. The only difference it makes is that people don’t waste their cooldown on a failed port. It even added more spots so thieves especially should be really happy about that change!

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Quadox.7834:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

• Boredom will not be solved with more frequent balance patches

That’s exactly what it would

Honestly?

I would take the current balance and improve the incentives to play and introduce more gamemodes…

Frequent balance updates means people will flock to the same darned thing within a week or two while still monkeying about in the few Conquest maps there are to get some vendor trash and a spot on a (now offline) broken leaderboard

People are not gonna try harder because a new balance patch hit them, and imbalances will never be removed regardless

Edit:
Neither does it help getting attention from more people within the game. I never heard someone with a balancing patch saying “Oh boy, now I really gotta get into Conquest”

People like testing and discovering things. I agree however that small things like the might nerf doesn’t create fun.

Mefiq.7039:

brain counters stealth. Stealth based builds usually are paper all you need to do is use brain…

What do you mean by stealth based builds?

Also, did you consider that the one using the stealth also has a brain?

Jesiah.2457:

Supreme.3164:

I don’t think this is a bug….this is a miracle.

This is the best, amazing bug ever happened to GW2, I’d pay to keep it

This is a miracle … for bad players who have learn to play issues. ^^

Shockwave.1230:

Hopefully these revealed changes after stealth wears off aren’t an actual thing. If someone get’s downed in stealth and revealed once it wears off, the ability to reliably restealth them for a reposition or stomp denial is nearly completely hindered.

There’s also the bugs with mesmer stealths, decoy and mass invisibility not stacking to normal stealth, which would mess things up.

Worse case scenario is you wasting cooldowns/initiative if you try to extend your stealth and it reveals you right before extending it. That’d be devestating. Like The Prestige coming off of cooldown right as your Decoy ends and you blow the cooldown on nothing. It could be a critical penalty for just using your skills, even if it’s off by milliseconds. It’s got the potential to have just as bad or worse results as port bugs, except this would be a penalty designed into the game.

Yep, a change like this would make thieves even easier to kill than they already are. Trying to position for a CnD restealth against a player themselves is already something that can be considered risk vs reward, with this, there will be no restealths in such a manner which is going to limit thieves survivability further. Not to mention it’s making a rarely used trait, hidden thief, lose even more of it’s limited utility.

All I can honestly see with this change is that it’s something in the sense of catered towards casual players. Probably because Arenanet has this fixation on the idea that casual game play is esports material, some-crazy-how. I will never understand them … but I can say this kind of trash is the sort of thing that will make me laugh at the idea of buying, let alone playing, HoT.

In what way is it catered towards casual players? It actually makes the class harder to play and removes stealth camping. This change is literally the opposite of casual.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

• Boredom will not be solved with more frequent balance patches

That’s exactly what it would

ArthurDent.9538:

^ that was my point, you may only have a 5% chance on thief to get the kill each attempt but if you don’t over extend and are patient enough eventually the enemy will make that mistake or 2 (of course if you do press too hard you can end up dead pretty quickly). As we all know in a real match this is a huge waste of time for the thief and a win for the enemy as they will likely have held the cap the whole time so it doesn’t really even matter.

Just jump in and out and chip his hp down. You even get the most op chill in the game to kill eles with.

Exedore.6320:

The upcoming changes to the trait system are meant to last. It’s an attempt to reduce the balance possibilities and make trait choices interesting. It’s a big undertaking and when you’re going to be changing everything anyway, it doesn’t make sense to do a huge balance overhaul on the old system.

However, PvP balance before the reveal of HoT was still too infrequent. It seems ANet’s structure doesn’t have PvP developers interacting much with profession developers and that the profession developers are tasked with other things.

I agree with this. The new system may reduce build options, but will be much much easier to balance. However, the balance patches need to be made frequent. Also, they absolutetly NEED to add good leaderboard and rankings when the expansion hits. There will be a huge influx of players who will only stay in pvp IF they have some motivation. Look at any other competitive game. SC2, Lol, dota, whatever. The thing that they have in common is that you can climb from bronze to diamond and platinum.

Khenzy.9348:

Fay.2357:

Khenzy.9348:

Time Marches On is too strong as a minor trait and makes the Chronomancer specialization mandatory.
That, and all 3 GM traits + Illusionary Reversion makes this a superior trait line, which just stops being a choise at this point.

This would be a problem….if you were anything other than hilariously wrong.

Signet of inspiration providing swiftness gives mesmers an alternate way of moving about quickly. Additionally, focus swaps provide good swiftness. On top of that, PU combined with the enhanced stealth duration also gives good swiftness duration.

It’s a good trait, but it’s not too strong, and it absolutely doesn’t make chrono mandatory. What a ridiculous assertion, please try to keep your forum spills more within the realm of reason in the future.

Edit: Checked your post history, 100% warrior. Thanks for pretending as if you’re a mesmer concerned about the strength of this trait, but you’re not fooling anyone.

Chill out buddy, way to overreact. Even though I play every profession almost equally, I never pretended to be a ‘Mesmer player concened’. We are all speculating here as we haven’t even playtested the specs yet. I think that one is pretty obvious, kind of sad it has to be strictly stated. Also, check my forum history again, now that you like using that as any sort of (unfounded) argument.

I’m from the ones that think a passive speed increase as a minor trait is a massive buff, for many reasons. And I’m not even taking into account the potential huge slow uptime or clones on shatter, or phantasms not dissapearing on shatter, which is huge, or you know, someone such as Helseth overjoyced when he heard about quickness on shatter. On paper this spec seems a straight up upgrade instead of a choice, which should not be the case, feel free to disagree, but being blistering to me is not the way to go.
I don’t have to state the enormous potential the new F5 has, hopefully.

Also, discrediting me becouse I’ve been posting on Warrior forums as of late (those may be 5% or less of the total of my posts), which is not even my most played profession… makes your reaction… questionable at best. I want this game to be balanced more than most, regardless of profession or spec, my entire post history clearly reflects that.

Don’t worry he is just afraid they will mesmer before the patch even hits once again (we all are). Anyways, by taking chronomancy over illusions or chaos (im assuming here you are already using duelling and domination) you are losing so many amaing things. Remember, the 25% trait is still a grandmaster minor. If we look at the illusions line, for example, we see that we lose out on another grandmaster that gives might on shatter and offers an additional 15% reduced cooldown on shatters. The master minor in the same traitline offers 20% reduced cooldown on all clone summoning skills. This includes ileap, mirror blade, phase retreat and decoy, for example. These minors are still arguably just as strong as chronomancer’s minors. Especially if you choose focus /traveler runes / signet of inspiration.

In terms of the f5, i would need to see the defence and health pool of the crystal thing before i can judge.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Um I’m confused why people think chill would ever be a problem for Chronomancers. We have a base 25% reduction on its duration, and its recharge effects are completely nullified by alacrity.

As for their stability skills, we can just kite through a null field.. 3s pulses every second mean nothing if its being removed every second. Any cover boon can easily be removed with boon rip. For instances we don’t have null field, access to slow means they have longer rotations with less stability uptime.

Our favourite Necro countering skill, Moa, can now be done twice. Fighting a Necro Moa for 20 seconds is a lot easier.

Phase retreat is eternal kiting, but we also have blink, and portal, I don’t see them being able to grab us unless we cant dodge a spectral grasp.

The only thing I dislike is we have the potential to constantly power their siphon traits, 4 targets almost all the time helps them out a lot. But this is only sustain.

Necro versus Mesmer. And Necro vs Chronomancer. Necro dies or stalemate. True we wont always have the best build for every Necro, but most of our base mechanics and skills counter their’s. And I didn’t even mention in this post the huge amount of interrupts we have to counter their long skills.

Mostly because mesmer has problems with chill. They probably assume we have no condi remove.

BTW isn’t spectral grasp on a ½ second cast time and therefore fairly hard to dodge? Or do i remember incorrectly?

Lol people he is asking a question and asking for a clearing up, you don’t have to tell him such rediculous as “his opinions are inferior”. That sounds pretty excessive to me. OP has a legit concern that shield might be stronger in conjunction with a sword in main hand over scepter.

as long as you don’t get stupid downstate damage

When you use sword 3 leap, the skill is slower because the cooldown timer before you can swap with the clone increases. Otherwise as far as i know chill doesn’t slow casting.

They probably has stab or something as they are meant to stand in large combats it looks like. An interesting thing to note is that necro is really strong in 1v1s with full life force so its great that they are allowing the abilities to scale by nearby players!

If you need to know if it is 40% or 66%, just look at the way chill works and reverse it.

glock.6590:

People still don’t understand that this game is balanced around passives. There is passive protection/invul to counter passive damage. ( defy pain vs air/fire)

Wrong. Some builds/classes don’t rely on passives to save them (mesmer for example) except for vampirism rune at most. Also, the game is NOT built around how fire/air or geo/doom works right now. For the majority of the game’s lifetime, we couldn’t stack 2 proc sigils and we couldn’t even use 2 sigils on twohanded weapons like the greatsword.

Ravenmoon.5318:

What really bothers me about you crybabies is that you are not complaining about a skill, or a trait, or an armor stat (e.g. the celestial complaining), you dumwits are complaining about sigils that every single profession and every single build could use.

We make a thousand percent sense actually. While you might be complaining about a single skill or trait in this game, we are complaining about something that ALL professions use. Why? Because it is that strong. Not everyone is playing incendiary powder engi (a trait which is by the way being moved and changed) but so many players are using sigils like air/fire/geo/doom. To have these mechanics completely changes the game, something a single trait or skill can’t do.

How are people seriously this naive? Do they just want the game to not become better? “random procs go hand in hand.” for example. Just what?

Fay.2357:

Quadox.7834:

ASP.8093:

Quadox.7834:

Mainly the GM, “every 3rd critical hit slows your target”. Now, i won’t comment on the numbers since i know they will change for many skills. However, this trait is not very fun or active and should in my opinion be changed to something else. To what, i am not 100% sure, but perhaps:
“When you hit cry of frustration, inflict slow”
or something. Simply procing on crit isn’t very fun since slow will mostly be used to delay animations for easier interruptions. For example, vs engineer healing turret, you can slow before you think he will use it so that you can interrupt easier!

As written, it’s a trait that lets you focus a target to get high Slow uptime on them (at least if you’re able to freecast on them).

That is a serious “playstyle change” for interrupts: it adds an extra facet of soft control, allowing you to slow down an enemy’s overall damage output in addition to interrupting key skills.

But that doesn’t fix the fact that it is random and super annoying to play against! Think incendiary powder, but probably worse!

It’s not really random like IP. Since it’s once every 3 crits, there should be a visual counter building on the mesmer that you’ll be able to see. Additionally, it’s not just a random chance on a random crit…it’s 100% chance every third crit. You can work with that.

You wont be able to plan when the crits come, so it will in practice work the same way. I could get 0 crits on my greatsword autoattack, or i could get all 3. It will feel random and annoying to play against especially for some classes. Also, iirc it will give your foe a buff sometimes. For example, blurred frenzy or similar (gear shield) will actually defend them for longer. You can’t really hold off attacking the opponent just asto not give them that advantage.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Yes … there are already 2 posts about it. Let’s make another one! It sounds like a great idea! … NOT.

I guess this is what ANet deserves for listening to crybabies and nerfing turret engineers into oblivion after that. Now crybabies want to nerf the next thing that kills them.
And this circle will continue until there is only 1 playable build on 1 profession. Thus skill. AmIrite?
GG.

Ignorant like always

If you don’t want a bunker meta, you nerf the bunkers, not add stronger sigils for the dps classes. Makes no sense.

Alekt.5803:

One of the best thing that could be done to a more offensive oriented Elementalist is to give the Staff some more faster and reliable auto attacks.

Chain Lightning.
No longer a projectile. Instant cast like the mesmer GS that will do the 3 bounces as before (Think WoW Shaman Chain Lightning)

Fireball.
Make it a straight liner that is much faster. Keep the AOE (Add 20% blast finisher Why not? finisher)

Water Bolt.
Make it a small cone (this one might be too radical) like the Guardian staff auto. This one would deal a minimal amount of damage, but would heal by a small amount in the area.

Stoning.
Make it shoot two stones (like the warrior longbow attack). Give the the old fireball projectile behavior ( Angled shot that goes to a medium speed.) First stone applies cripple for 1 sec, Second stone applies weakness for 3 seconds (like before). (20% projectile finisher instead of 100%, a lil nerf here)

Fireball damage would then need to be nerfed

ASP.8093:

Quadox.7834:

Mainly the GM, “every 3rd critical hit slows your target”. Now, i won’t comment on the numbers since i know they will change for many skills. However, this trait is not very fun or active and should in my opinion be changed to something else. To what, i am not 100% sure, but perhaps:
“When you hit cry of frustration, inflict slow”
or something. Simply procing on crit isn’t very fun since slow will mostly be used to delay animations for easier interruptions. For example, vs engineer healing turret, you can slow before you think he will use it so that you can interrupt easier!

As written, it’s a trait that lets you focus a target to get high Slow uptime on them (at least if you’re able to freecast on them).

That is a serious “playstyle change” for interrupts: it adds an extra facet of soft control, allowing you to slow down an enemy’s overall damage output in addition to interrupting key skills.

But that doesn’t fix the fact that it is random and super annoying to play against! Think incendiary powder, but probably worse!

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

JonPeters.5630:

Was hoping saying it once was enough but I’ll say it again. This is a work in progress. Try to give feedback based on the utility and synergy of the trait instead of the numbers. Slow every 3rd critical hit could also be every 10th critical hit. It could be 8s of slow instead of two. Obviously these numbers are an attempt to be accurate otherwise we wouldn’t even give them but a lot of this stuff will go up and/or down before HoT is released.

Jon

If we’re disregarding numbers and just look at trait quality as Jon requested, I believe in general mesmer community like these new traits.

However, I can’t help but feel a bit inconsistency in Chronomancer traitline. Probably due to balance reasons but I’d love to see synergies between Slow and Alacrity.

For example, is it possible to make Seize The Moment grant alacrity when inflict slow on opponent? Its competition with Lost Time prevents mesmer from having too much access to alacrity, while granting grandmaster worthy benefits to lockdown mesmers if combined with Delayed Reaction. This also provide the most consistent synergies with minor (Flow of Time), adept (Delayed Reaction), master (Improved Alacrity) and grandmaster (the new Seize the Moment I suggested).

This reduce CD on interrupt also coincides with what Fay suggested last year about changing disruptor’s sustainment, which gained large popularity among mesmers in this forum.

What do you think about this change Jon? Is this the kind of feedback you were looking for?

Great idea to make slow and alacrity synergize. Another idea in a similar direction is “gain alacrity when you gain quickness”, with a short duration. Syergizes with chronomancer and with furious interruption nicely.

Hello ANet! Love that you kindly provided us with the traits so quickly, much appreciated. Most of the traits are interesting and unique, but there are a few that you could take a look at.

Mainly the GM, “every 3rd critical hit slows your target”. Now, i won’t comment on the numbers since i know they will change for many skills. However, this trait is not very fun or active and should in my opinion be changed to something else. To what, i am not 100% sure, but perhaps:
“When you hit cry of frustration, inflict slow”
or something. Simply procing on crit isn’t very fun since slow will mostly be used to delay animations for easier interruptions. For example, vs engineer healing turret, you can slow before you think he will use it so that you can interrupt easier!

Another thing you could do is time your burst with your slow, if you have the trait that increase crit chance on slowed enemies. These kind of plays won’t be available. Instead it becomes a dice roll wether you win or you lose, which noone wants.

GM traits are supposed to change the playstyle, not just give you a passive buff.

On another notice, i wells removing one condition when they end is WAY too little, but i have no doubt you know this already and will adjust numbers in the future!

Great job with the chronomancer. Thanks again, and i hope you read this.

Terrorsquad.2349:

Patchi.9061:

+1 to this post.

If i might add to it, other auto attack procs (such as IP on engineer) should not proc on auto attacks either. It promotes passive play on engi making it extremley powerful in 1vs1s and Teamfights by constantly applyin poison and burn on auto attacks.

As for the people claiming that it would destroy certain specs of the build.. (s/d thief/power rangers) you are already getting a damage boost and should consider trait swaps if you really want to invest in damage. There is little trade-off for investing all trait lines to survivability when you have air/fire proc and procs such as IP on auto attacks. Logic dictates, if you want damage you trait for damage, damage should be subtracted otherwise. (the fact the s/d acro offers the same sustained damage as critstrike s/d in 1 minute justifies my arguement.)

Thieves and Mesmers are counting on those kind of procs to be viable. Even the full damage traited. Without Air/Fire, Thieves and mesmers will be totally pushed out of the meta, despite the small buffs they get with upcoming trait changes (not to mention mesmer is already out of the meta in top tier). Everyone will play cele bruiser if they would remove air/fire. So.much.fun.

Also; thieves and mesmer had enough nerfs that they’re on the edge of extinction in PvP.

Unless you’re offering something in return to burst builds to compensate:

SAY NO TO BRAINDEAD CELE!

SAY NO TO KEEPING SOMETHING BROKEN JUST TO KEEP AWAY SOMETHING ELSE BROKEN.

In all seriousness, remove air/fire, then buff/nerf accordingly.

denis.9487:

What about dropping dueling for chrono. Might have enough with new chrono traits.

No.

f5 mechanic essentially makes clone generation even more important.

Domi / duelling / chrono

I can duel you today for fun if you want

I wish elites in this game were more like mobas, huge damage spikes or similar that would be hard to hit. Gravity well is the closest to this i think.

Thief Guard Engi Warrior
v
Ele
v
Mesmer
v
Ranger = Necro

Is what we see in top play atm

I like beach way more, it allows mesmer to actually beat thieves.

Zenith.7301:

Quadox.7834:

StickerHappy.8052:

Windwalker.7421:

Not to rain of everyone’s parade of tears, but there are a lot of people exaggerating so much it’s just ridiculous. Let’s just put aside that Anet said all the balancing is still totally open, that they made it very clear that we’re looking more at mechanics and basic ideas, rather than final values and finished abilities.

People are speculating about how Chrono abilities “obviously” are inferior and DH abilities are clearly superior, without having actually tested either of them. Take the whole 25 Vulnerability thing. I bet people would actually whine about this if it were put on a Well, because “Wah we already put out so much Vuln, and so does everyone else, this is so useless! Engie stack 20+ in an instant, then this ability will do nothing!”

Alacrity is also obviously bad or supposedly not as good as many may think, although we all know how strong Chill’s slowing effect is!?

The other CD reducing effects are probably a hidden nerf, although math clearly shows that they can be stronger (if used well aka SKILL) then the current flat reductions.

Thieves will still be a hard counter despite a huge amount of survivability, spike damage, condie damage, etc. being added.

Mostly a lot of stuff being said here is simply “grass is greener” spam, that sadly always happens when another class’ goodies are revealed. While strong, I saw nothing of the Guardian that makes me think I’m going to give up my Mesmer and play a Guardian. I have a strong feeling that to get the DH goodies, you end up having to kitten a lot of what makes Guardians strong right now. (aka TRADE OFFS)

I have no issue on other classes mechanics or other goodies they get, I am only mad on how they presented the mesmer feature which clearly lacks tact and other necessary information. Why did that happen? Why is DH presentation painfully better, well presented, gave all necessary information to those people who main and play guardian?

Now look at ours, till now its all speculation, no explanation or whatsoever for giving justification to their ideas, etc. So..why is that?

Simple, our was a point of interest, aka not pvp blance focused. Which sucks.

Um, he was using staff, a pvp weapon totally worthless in PvE and large scale WvW.

He was using shatters, worthless in pve.

I don’t know where you get the idea that this wasn’t a pvp balance presentation considering he spent a lot of his time explaining all the dumb restrictions and drawbacks imposed on the new skills for the sake of their precious PvP balance.

End product is the same, mesmer will be a burst class eclipsed by thief but people hate all burst classes so mesmer will eat a couple of nerfs to cooldowns and durations of skills and remain a gimmick class in PvE as a result and a deficient competitive PvP class relative to thief and guardian.

Watch previous point of interests and ready ups. The difference is huge.

Next week i do not think they will do what they did for mesmer, since they have learnt by now. ^^

BlackBeard.2873:

Quadox.7834:

OR i use obsidian skin for the same function as distortion, with the lack of stealth offset by blinds, permanent (op op) vigor, an amazing heal, better condi removal, the list goes on. What do i have on mesmer? stealth + an evade skill that roots you.

Im not saying fresh air will be a great meta build, i am only saying this is what i’ll be running for fun, and in my opinion it is underrated asf because most eles aren’t used to kiting and using terrain anymore due to cele.

And true, my hp will be less, but i will have amazing protection uptime for that issue.

You are kind of missing the point of zerker mesmer. While the actual fighting capabilities are pretty close to fresh-air ele, mesmer has portal. Even though mesmer also has some other benefits (boon stripping, shorter CD’s so that you can stay in the fight longer and burst slightly more often, stealth which allows both defensive and offensive bursts with no telegraph, etc.), and ele has some of its own advantages (swiftness uptime, more cleanses, potential for aoe boons), the ENTIRE reason you take a mesmer rather than just another thief is portal. Portal alone (and even Illusion of Life when Mesmers used to get away with taking it) can completely change the pacing and outcome of match. It creates outnumbered situations by holding enemies on a point, it allows sick rotational jukes, it can secure resses (for ele) or peels for team-mates under-fire…the list goes on. Even if the balance of +/- in a comparison of ele and mesmer in a fight tipped slightly towards ele (it actually tips slightly towards mesmer), the rediculous plays that portal allows completely changes the game.

Meanwhile, burst eles don’t bring ANYTHING special that would make you rather have an ele. Even the support-capability through boons, cleanses, and heals are so short-range on such a squishy spec that the actual capability is greatly reduced from the maximum theoretical potential, further lessening their impact when comparing them for the roaming-dps role.

Fgs is strong (so is moa) and technically eles bring boons (protection) and water trident heals to the table. Actually, they also bring swirling winds boon block for en entire point > amazing vs some comps like engi. But i agree, hence why i said “Im not saying fresh air will be a great meta build, i am only saying this is what i’ll be running for fun.”

I don’t know why you guys keep arguing when i just posted the build i will be running, not more. I even suggested some things i believe could fix ele sustain problem, e.g. selfish EA. ^^

I can accept the sword trait i guess, but i think the other ones are just better. There are however more obviously underwhelming traits to change.

Yeah the problem is that the shatter skills are there, why not make use of them. Why would you play with 4 skills less, basically. You see this on almost all classes. Warriors making use of burst skill, thief using all steal traits, Elementalist making use of arcana cooldown reduction.

I still agree with what tage wrote. However, i do think this would effect mesmer and thief alot.

Avead.5760:

Quadox.7834:

Do you even know elmentalist ablities? Read on magnetic shield please. As a mesmer player, i find fresh air has condition removal for days. Actually, fresh air has more sustain than mesmer in general, with the tradeoff being stealth. Use terrain and your permanent vigor to evade the condition that you can’t clear.

I personally like blind, but you can go ahead and use water traitline like fresh air eles are doing now, or earth if you so want it. Although i do think those options are worse. Also, you actually don’t know that the build will have 11k hp, as you know nothing about the way stats will work.

Yes i know everything about any skill ele has or had and i would bet my left nut that this build is gonna be kitten like it is today.
Its called magnetic wave btw and is on a 25 sec cd.Its also your only condi removal in that build.Zerkers doesnt have hp as a secondary stat so the buff on vitality wont be as much as you think.I highly doubt you ll end above 15k maybe even 14k or less.
You should also consider that as a mesmer player you are used to plenty of oh kitten buttons that you dont even need to trait for plus your class mechanic.Not having them with ele will make you get hit more.Your hp will be less as well.’
You wont be able to kite that good…
You ll get near to burst with phoenix and then you ll wonder where is your op blink staff skill on a base 10 sec cd to get you off to high ground..Then when you inevitable die you ll start potitioning safer, keeping distance etc..But then you ll notice the weak autoattacks and that you arent doing much damage at all.
At that point you should propably realise..“whats the point” and run back at your mesmer and all the goodies it ll get

Lastly elem attunement self only version is still bad idea.It overpowers the already good sustain of selfish tank builds we are getting anyway with the new system on ele while doesnt fix the support..Is it so hard to see it?

OR i use obsidian skin for the same function as distortion, with the lack of stealth offset by blinds, permanent (op op) vigor, an amazing heal, better condi removal, the list goes on. What do i have on mesmer? stealth + an evade skill that roots you.

Im not saying fresh air will be a great meta build, i am only saying this is what i’ll be running for fun, and in my opinion it is underrated asf because most eles aren’t used to kiting and using terrain anymore due to cele.

And true, my hp will be less, but i will have amazing protection uptime for that issue.

BlackBeard.2873:

Avead.5760:

Lastly elem attunement self only version is still bad idea.It overpowers the already good sustain of selfish tank builds we are getting anyway with the new system on ele while doesnt fix the support..Is it so hard to see it?

I disagree with you here, and this is why:

1. A self-only version (with shorter durations) baseline improves the baseline sustain of the class and truly cuts ties with the NECESSITY of going into arcana. This actual creates build diversity as arcana will have attractive traits but not be forced to pick up the trait that defines the class.
2. Since all of the balancing for weapon skills, other traits, etc. has been done with the assumption that 100% of pvp builds have this trait, why not make it true?
3. Having greater baseline sustain means they don’t need to have as many OP survival options that become dangerous when stacked together, creating serious balancing issues. Besides, numbers on other traits are still in flux: remember, previewed numbers were not set-in stone, and that -20% damage within 600 range that everyone is counting on will probably end up being -5% damage within 120 range b/c they seem to want to crap REALLY kitten the class right now.
4. It allows the class to have an actual built-in defense mechanic like every other class has, making the attunement system have an actual benefit rather than carrying only negatives (long CD’s on skills, trashy auto-attacks besides lightning whip and fireball, long CD’s on slot-skills).
5. The class just FEELS wrong without it.
6. It shouldn’t actually reduce support, as the baseline-proposal also includes a master-level trait that increases the duration and makes it AOE, turning the trait “Elemental Attunement” primarily into a support trait and helping the tanky/support-ish build that d/d is. This allows builds that want more support to maintain that play-style without making it “necessary for survival”

Making selfish boons-on-swap baseline at a reduced duration has nothing by positive benefits for a class that has some truly deep flaws, actually opening the door for build diversity. Further, by implementing the trait “ele attunement” to make those boons AOE, you keep the strong support element viable while also decoupling it from the “needs this to survive” functionality.

Exactly. Eles are asking for more sustain> Anet don’t want to give them simply more hp> I suggest this change which clearly gives ele more sustain without going arcana> People say that it sucks.

Hypocrisy much?

StickerHappy.8052:

Windwalker.7421:

Not to rain of everyone’s parade of tears, but there are a lot of people exaggerating so much it’s just ridiculous. Let’s just put aside that Anet said all the balancing is still totally open, that they made it very clear that we’re looking more at mechanics and basic ideas, rather than final values and finished abilities.

People are speculating about how Chrono abilities “obviously” are inferior and DH abilities are clearly superior, without having actually tested either of them. Take the whole 25 Vulnerability thing. I bet people would actually whine about this if it were put on a Well, because “Wah we already put out so much Vuln, and so does everyone else, this is so useless! Engie stack 20+ in an instant, then this ability will do nothing!”

Alacrity is also obviously bad or supposedly not as good as many may think, although we all know how strong Chill’s slowing effect is!?

The other CD reducing effects are probably a hidden nerf, although math clearly shows that they can be stronger (if used well aka SKILL) then the current flat reductions.

Thieves will still be a hard counter despite a huge amount of survivability, spike damage, condie damage, etc. being added.

Mostly a lot of stuff being said here is simply “grass is greener” spam, that sadly always happens when another class’ goodies are revealed. While strong, I saw nothing of the Guardian that makes me think I’m going to give up my Mesmer and play a Guardian. I have a strong feeling that to get the DH goodies, you end up having to kitten a lot of what makes Guardians strong right now. (aka TRADE OFFS)

I have no issue on other classes mechanics or other goodies they get, I am only mad on how they presented the mesmer feature which clearly lacks tact and other necessary information. Why did that happen? Why is DH presentation painfully better, well presented, gave all necessary information to those people who main and play guardian?

Now look at ours, till now its all speculation, no explanation or whatsoever for giving justification to their ideas, etc. So..why is that?

Simple, our was a point of interest, aka not pvp blance focused. Which sucks.

Laraley.7695:

Quadox.7834:

Laraley.7695:

Kicast.1459:

Worst: no contest possible => thief

Hard counter of plenty of builds
No hard counter
Spammy as hell
Very low risk / high reward
Worst of all: few to none counter play => instant gap closers / never ending dodging machine / stealth spamm / stupid mobility.
In the end a disaster removing any fun.

And anet wants to give double steal ?
Just for trolling I suppose.

Best design:
I like guard…it is not selfish … positive for teamates and fair for opponents.

You’re kidding me right?
Thief has no counter? How about almost every spec in the game apart from mesmer? High reward low risk? Have you ever played thief? It’s probably one of the hardest things in game. People like you do not understand the classes at all, especially when you cannot comprehend the nature of Improvisation.

Nice try, 2/10.

Work on your reading. He wrote “no HARD counter”. A thief will lose to a guardian or an engineer if they fight them 1v1 on a point. They can, however, move away at any point in time and can even win eventually as long as they play cheesy/carefully by jumping in and out. A mesmer will die from a good thief if he gets no support from teammates. The mesmer cannot walk away, blink away or anything of the sort. The matchup besides mesmer and thief i would perhaps consider a hardcounter is Necro vs Condi Engi.

The notion that thief hard counters plenty of builds is debatable, but it does feel incredibly boring and cheesy when you play for example a fresh air ele and suddenly you get stealth backstabbed, get posion, weakness, daze and 3 seconds immobilize on you instantly.

My reading is fine.

Thief will generally lose in 1v1 to:
d/d ele
shoutbow
engi
guardian

Note, those are the specs that have been in meta for ages.

Thief has an okay match up against:
Necro (but power necro is not really that easy for a thief)
Ranger

Thief is very good against:
mesmer

Making it seem like a thief can go and just 1v1 anything with no issues is wrong. I do agree that d/p builds are really good, but they’re not low risk/high reward. It is one of the hardest things to play in the game and you have to play almost perfectly if you don’t want to be liability to your team. I agree with you that thief has many ways to disengage, but I don’t agree mesmer does not. You have portal, blink, distortion, stealth…Thief might be better at that, but it doesn’t mean mesmer is complete trash, it isn’t.

It’s funny that you say it feels cheesy when you’re on fresh air and you get backstabbed and immobed. Many fresh air skills are instant, have interrupts that track stealth and dps that can shut down a thief.

I don’t main thief, I actually main ele and had been mostly playing fresh air till recently when I picked up thief and it’s really not that easy how some people think. It’s a completely different playstyle due to the nature of the profession and it has its benefits but it rewards good play.

It does’t have to be fresh air, i could just as well be any squishy build. The argument was that thief arguably pushes some other squishies out of the meta because it kills well and has amazing mobility. Now, i don’t think this is necessarily true, why i said “The notion that thief hard counters plenty of builds is debatable”.

You are right in that thief generally will lose to
d/d ele
shoutbow
engi
guardian

But you still don’t seem to understand. These are 1v1 counters, not HARD counters. They don’t shut a thief at all, they simply outlast him and kill him in that regard. A shoutbow warrior will by your logic hardcounter almost anything in this game. Make sure to differenciate. =))