Guild Wars 2

TheGreatA.4192:

The vigor nerf I believe is warranted, considering every other class has received similar nerfs.

I believe Deceptive Evasion could’ve been handled different, for example with a slight ICD. However the fact is that it was a broken trait combined with the perma vigor and sigils of energy and needed to be dealt with somehow.

If it was so “broken” then how come a shatter mesmer is a rare sight in high end tournaments even today?
Could it be that they have very little defense outside DE?
Shatter Mesmers are the only spec viable for high end tournaments and are low in the food chain as it is.

Well said. I wish I could have voiced my own very similar concerns with such elegance. +1.

Qaelyn.7612:

I honestly don’t even care if they leave HS as it is if they fix the other problems. Warriors should have high sustain as they are a front-line class, but they should not also have massive condition application, condition removal, immunities and mobility.

The mobility is IMO the single biggest problem. It’s excessive and needs to be fixed. It’s not reasonable to give one class the highest sustain and nearly the best ability to chase and disengage whenever they want.

I don’t disagree with you. (I get the feeling you think I do though lol).
Balancing other aspects of the Warrior does however not seem to be a priority for the next balance patch even though warriors are one of the most dominating professions atm.

The only thing we do know for sure is that there is going to be a slight change to the signet passive and I honestly don’t think that will be enough.

Qaelyn.7612:

I don’t really know if the whole “they mostly play warriors so they’re biased towards them” thing is fair. Seems like an assumption that then gets passed around as if it were fact.

Maybe a bad joke on their part then.
Their actions and choices in terms of balance speaks for themselves though.
Give the signet a strong active also and reduce the passive with next to nothing.

Qaelyn.7612:

Wasbunny.6531:

I respectfully take offence at having my Mesmer build and play-style called ‘cheesy’ by the devs when they talked about the upcoming changes to Deceptive Evasion.

Same. And as bad as the (IMO excessive) nerfings are, what’s even worse is how cavalier they seemed to be about the whole thing. I didn’t listen to it live, but I’ve read the transcribed comments, and they come across to me not as based on decisions soberly made after a great deal of thought and analysis. Rather, they decided something was “cheesy” — about as subjective and meaningless a term as exists in gaming — and burned it to the ground.

The changes are nerfs to nearly all mesmers, some more than others, and appear to have been done with little consideration to balance or secondary effects.

Same for me.
Apparently ‘cheesy’ is almost every single Mesmer build as most builds are affected by their changes.

They failed to understand why the unique class mechanic (shatter) is becoming more and more rare outside competitive team tournaments and are often not in those tournaments either.

They failed to do anything for a profession that in a competitive team tournament is:
Definitely not a must have, viable but a thief is basically better, with babysitting you miiiiiight be able pull off bringing a Mesmer.

Maybe they should consider that it is actually NOT funny that the majority of them play a warrior and therefor appear to have a limited insight to the other professions.

selan.8354:

yeah the way they talked about mesmers was so disrespectful and unprofessional, that i lost all my faith in the balance team. i was always hoping the devs will focus once just once on the mesmer and fix the bugs, give us something new for wvw and tpvp so we are not just veilbots anymore. just once…but then the stream happened and i saw how much the devs dont wanna give the mesmer anything that could be strong. they rather nerf if we even dare to find a good build. probably also the reason why they nerfed glamours into the ground and then gave confusion to other classes that didnt even have to spec for it and get better results.

I agree. I found them to be extremely disrespectful as well.

Besides that: A warrior told me he can get 10.500 damage from torment alone without having to spec into anything for it.

Teams run double warrior.

The few teams that run a Mesmer in tpvp have to babysit them and they are mainly there, because the players want to make them work, and because so many of the organized teams have quit playing which makes it possible.

Arena net then introduce a nerf to the profession that is barely viable. If they are unhappy about PU, they could have gone about it in so many different ways that would not have harmed the shatter Mesmer. Apparently, that was too much to hope for.

selan.8354:

and the way they talked about mes. ugh laughing and mocking the mesmers. sure in 2 yrs the mes will finally get a buff for wvw after suffering as a veilbot for month after month and being cced to death over and over…

Yes. I rarely get angry but I was furious after watching that stream. They have made the wrong decisions and they think it is “funny” to deliver the message of a nerf, which they were unable to provide any valid arguments for either. Depressing to say at least.

EDIT: Maybe they should change the warrior skill instead. Let them have a “throw hammer” The hammer like clones should follow its target at normal run speed and if I kite it, then the warrior should be unable to do any significant dps.

No?
No of course not. All the developers play warriors and in that scenario, they would see the problem.

EDIT, EDIT: Yes, I am still angry and extremely disappointed in them.

Coulter.2315:

I have been told by someone that the Deceptive Evasion change will count clones differently than the current system.

At the moment if I have 3 clones and Shatter they all run to target but I can spawn new clones before they reach their destination. I have been told that the changed Deceptive Evasion will not spawn new clones in this situation because it counts the circle indicators and does not use the current system of not counting clones sent to shatter regardless of the circle indicator count.

Please you must go back and look at this coding again and make it work as the old system did, this will really badly effect Shatter mesmers especially those who use Staff/GS as all their clones/phants tend to keep themselves at range to the target. If this change goes through without being looked at it will suverely damage the 1 Mesmer build which has a bit of honour to it – you said yourselves you wanted to stop the cheesey stuff.

If this is true then imagine this:

Scenario 1:
You engage in a fight. You spawn your 3 clones and send them to shatter. Their target decides to kite your clones, which then will not shatter because they have not reached their target.

Another person pops into the fight and is able to cripple/immobilize/stun/fear you.
You cannot reach the kiting person and neither can your clones. You have no way of pressuring the second person because you have no dps.
You cannot spawn new clones.

Scenario 2:
After initiating a shatter, the person you are fighting decides to disengage. Your clones are following. In the meantime, a thief jumps you.

Your best defense against thieves are usually offense, which you now won’t have until your current clones are far enough away to be destroyed.

Truly amazing and well thought out change….

What I don’t understand is why on earth you would nerf a profession that is barely viable in the current spvp meta without compensating said profession in any way.

I asked 2 well known tournament Mesmer’s in this meta the same question:
“Why would you bring a Mesmer over a thief?”

The answers were:
“Thief is basically better.” and “I might have to go spirit ranger.”
“That’s the thing my team is struggling with at the moment.”

We can off course add Helseth’s rating of professions in tournaments:

1. Guardian
2. Warrior
3. Thief
4. Necromancer
5. Ranger
6. Engineer
7. Mesmer
8. Elementalist

Now Mesmers get a nerf that will hurt the tournament specs as well. Good Job A-net. Really good job. And then we have to wait 6 months for the next balance patch would be my guess.

I don’t think the developers understand the issues Mesmer’s have in the current meta. I would advise them to go shatter and make sure to find a spvp match with warriors, rangers and thieves.

Then maybe:

• they would understand why the clones are important.

• Maybe they would also understand why shatter Mesmer’s are becoming a rare sight.

• Maybe they would understand, why it is that the Mesmer is not really needed on teams.

• They will get to experience the joy of encountering thieves and understand just how painful that is.

• They will come to realize, that even as full glass, taking a warrior down is a tedious slow task.

• They will get to fight engineers and understand why you need to be able to dodge and create a clone in front of you.

• They will understand that a shatter mesmer has very little defense outside of dodges.

• They will experience how hard it is to disengage from a fight running slower than most.

Yes, I think that is exactly what they should do.

Instead, they sit and giggle about Mesmer nerfs and how they all play warrior (no surprise there).

If they change one of the most important mechanics of Mesmer’s, then at least they should attempt to understand the profession and how it will affect more than one build.

HAHAHA! We all play warriors!
Not funny joke or fact?

My conclusion is that none of the developers play a shatter Mesmer or has even the slightest idea how their intended nerf to PU will affect other builds.
I am so disappointed in them.

I do not wish for the Mesmer forum to turn into the state of some of the other professions with constant complaints, but….

Should we be more vocal in general?

To say that the latest design decisions regarding Mesmers are baffling to me would be an understatement.

Would being more vocal possibly help since the developers seem to not understand the Mesmer profession that well?

What do you think?

Stievie.6128:

Got some intel from a person who spoke to a dev:

Allready shattered Illusions will count towards the new DE cap.
If you have 3 clones up and shatter them , you cant produce new clones with DE until the shattered ones explode.

Lets all play PU I guess

Wow. Way to kill a build that is already struggling. Most impressive knowledge the developers are showing in their design decisions……

Stievie.6128:

Bearlin.7238:

What if you have 3 clones out and you press a shatter… and while these clones are running to the target, you dodge to produce more clones? Will it actually produce clones?

this issue needs way more attention

I agree. We need a definite answer to this one from the developers.

Oprah.1347:

Stop using the excuse of ‘new players are overwhelmed’.

They aren’t.

You’re adding another tier of grind to sPvP that it just doesn’t need. The best part about this game was its basis of equal footing for every player, new and old.

Please, for the love of god – scrap the skill / stat / rune / sigil unlock idea and keep it to skins and cosmetics.

All is vain.

Agreed 100%.

Lord Helseth voiced his thoughts on the planned changes to critical damage, sigils and professions. It is a discussion about the good, the bad and power creep.
You can find it here

Lord Helseth voiced his thoughts on the planned changes to critical damage, sigils and professions.
It is a discussion about the good, the bad and power creep in pvp.
You can find it here

It is a bug.
A-net has stated they will fix it ASAP whatever that means. :-)
Doing a /dance might free you.
Greatsword #3 and sword #2 seems to get you unstuck as well.

Fox.3562:

Daishi.6027:

While we’re at it. Can we fix the bug where it does the animation, nothing happens and just goes strait to cool down when switching to the weapon.

I think this also happens on iZerker

That happens when you’re out of range. The skill will still attempt to activate instead of doing nothing and saying “out of range”. I don’t mind that as much because you just have to make sure you’re in range before you use it.

According to Supcutie’s guide, this is not an out of range issue. It is a bug.
Here is the video he made to show the issue.

As for Illusionary Leap, I would love to see a fix. I like the ideas listed here, especially #2.

I think Sylvari can look anything from fierce to quite adorable.
I don’t think they are ugly at all

I think we should agree that: Since it is perfectly viable to run 2 warriors in highly organized team play, they most likely will get nerfed.
It happened to the Elementalist, it happened to the Necromancers, I don’t see why it should be any different for the Warrior.

Umut.5471:

It was necros before, everyone was playing condi necro after buffs, then what happened? It has been toned town and everyone moved back to their own class, or new op classes. Now warriors are in the same situation, they will move back to their own class(or maybe another op class of that time) after nerfs.

This is true, but 2 wrongs doesn’t make a right when it comes to balance patches.
One can only hope that a-net eventually learn from their mistakes.

I hope warriors get toned down to the point where:
People that actually enjoy the class and know what they are doing can still be successful.
Everyone that rolled a warrior, because they are too strong at the moment, can go back to their original class.

My little asura mesmer is looking fancy in pvp now.

This is so frustrating. I wonder how long ASAP is going to be.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Alissah, the pattern I use that avoids that (when lagless) feels like this:

About face+phase retreat, tiny pause, about face.

That is exactly what I do as well. Works like a charm.

Xaos.3257:

I have some issues with getting stuck after a disable or immobilize. I don’t know how ( what circumstances must be met ) but some times i’m stuck and i have no way to un-stuck. In one situation i had to log of in the middle of the game ( team arena ) and relogg because i had not any other way to keep playing ( except died )

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-stuck-after-blinking/first#post3422849

I think this issue is described here. I am hoping for a fix soon.

Chicago Jack.5647:

What “shouldn’t be” acceptable, is certain team compositions that require little teamwork to pull off well, and outperform, in comparison to those that do require that teamwork.

I don’t disagree with this part.
On the other hand I still think it would be nice to have the more difficult builds more rewarding. Look at rangers?
The only thing they have is the spirit build. I think it is flawed that the easiest spec is also the one that performs the best, but they do not really have an alternative.

You are correct that there are “bad builds” as well.
The best build will always be the one that performs the best for the situation it is designed to master, regardless of whether or not people find it cheesy.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Ideally, team compositions that are cheese will be easy to play, but have easy counters to them. Whereas balanced builds should be able to deal with anything, but require skill to pull off well. Somehow anet missed the mark on this. The game is better now, but its still not where it should be.

I have to say I agree with this. I do not understand why the easy to play builds are often also the overall best build to play and I do hope this will change.

I think people should be rewarded for improving and practicing on the harder to play builds. Currently, the easy ones counter many of the harder to play builds. This provides little reason to learn and master a build that is more difficult to pull off.

Some classes are forced into the easy to play builds, because they don’t have any viable alternatives. I am hoping to see a change in this as well.

Perhaps it is just me that understood the original post in a different way.
The way I read it, it was about how pvp is in terms of damage, not about thief in particular.

It was about how pvp is designed in gw2?
I think I read somewhere, that some of the competitive tournament people have also expressed, that the game would benefit from lowering the overall damage output. (I could be mistaken in this though.)

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hey Reesha, thanks again for helping me get in contact with Helseth.

We spoke a bit about the video, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be working on a written companion to his video guides and then adding both to the stickied Mesmer guide. We came up with a few topics.

• Portal in PvP
• Mesmer PvP Builds and their effectiveness
• Why he runs the builds he runs.
• How the pvp stage can change your utilities.
• The CS change and the viability of lockdown Mesmer.
• How to Phase Retreat like a boss.
• Learning proper positioning and choosing the right targets.

(And like we mentioned, pushed him back towards 30/20/0/0/20 rather than 30/25/0/0/15 for Illusionary Invig. =P)

I think this is going to be a great opportunity to get a lot of good info on advanced techniques and the mindset of high level Mesmer play, similar to Sensotix’s SoloQ series.

Glad to help. I figured his new build might pique your interest.

I like the topics listed but personally, I would love to see a video regarding how to deal with x class with this build.

The reasons being:

• There is not much point attacking far, or going back to defend close, if you cannot handle whatever class is there or prevent a cap for a period of time without dying.

• I feel this one area in general is somewhat lacking tutorial wise.

I sign up solo for team queue.
There is no Skyhammer and there is no Spirit Watch which is a great bonus.

Maybe I have just been unlucky with my limited solo queue experience, but usually, the groups I get in the team queue is more interested in working as a team.
Those are the main reasons for me.

Hello. Lord Helseth from Denial Esports is in the process of making Mesmer tutorial videos and is currently open for taking topics on what the videos are going to cover.
What would you guys want to see the videos be about?

EDIT: It should also be mentioned, that he is currently making videos regarding mesmer builds, so none-build topics would be appreciated.

I think things change at a higher mmr, but I wouldn’t know, I am no where near it yet.
The problem both of us seem to face, is making our builds work in a situation, where you cannot depend on your team to make good decisions and (for me at least) learning myself what a good decision is.

sendmark.4731:

Shatter takes marginally more effort than phantasms/PU, but hardly light years above. Sounds like people who don’t even main mesmer, or are terrrible.

Well excuse me mr. perfect.
We all have to start somewhere. Starting at something does usually not mean being flawless like you.

The question was why? The answer seems to be, that at higher mmr or in team q there are many shatter mesmers. Those of us that are not at that point yet, such as Qaelyn and myself, are simply giving reasons as to why you don’t see that many of them elsewhere.

@Qaelyn, I am no expert, but I believe it goes something like this:

Shatter has burst, it has portal. A portal means a shatter mesmer, as an example, can cap close and go mid to help out. If needed, he can portal back to close instantly. He can also bring more people through the portal if needed.

If played with Confounding Suggestions you can stun a target for your team. You are great at harassing people from ranged. You can interrupt stomps with F3 while ressing.

You can interrupt using Chaos Storm on point as well. If no stability, you have the option to knock them away with GS 5, or you can try to deliver enough burst, forcing them to abandon the res.

Null field can strip the boons of your foes and condition from your allies.

For team play, a mesmer is usually not used as a point defender. When it comes to team play, I believe a shatter mesmer takes a more supportive role and within that role, a shatter mesmer has a lot to offer.

Ulalume.9584:

Please remove this map from solo queue now. You removed it from team queue because it’s not a competitive map, then why would you force it on us in solo queue?

^This.

Personally, I think shatter can do amazing things, but if you make a mistake it is pretty much game over.

If you compare the two, PU is (in my opinion) much more forgiving. Shatter is a lot harder to pull off.

For PU:
The more blindly aggressive your opponents are spamming attacks, the faster they go down. With a patient none spamming opponent, PU loses a lot of its potential burst.
Keep in mind that PU is a punishing build. It thrives on people spamming abilities.

For shatter:
Almost your entire defense is active, meaning you have to know what to dodge, when to play aggressive and when to play defensive.
You often need to know and use the terrain and be able to quickly identify the spec of your opponent in order to be successful.

Most of your attacks are highly telegraphed. It is likely that your opponent will react and avoid your burst. Therefore, you often have to bait your shatters – lure your opponent into using his cool downs and save the real burst. You also have to stay alive until that point in time. ^^

• If you mess up with PU, it is usually not the end of the world. This is true for many other classes and builds as well.

• If you mess up as a shatter mesmer, you will find that shatter is not very good at recovering from a mistake and often, it will lead to your death.

In the right hands, shatter can be amazing (in other words: not in my hands^^), but I believe it is at its finest when it actually has a team to support.
It is not that strong fighting on a point; shatter is weak to both conditions and physical damage. It performs the best when it can jump in and out of a fight at will.

In team play, and in the right hands, I believe shatter variants are the best builds, but how many of us are actually “the right hands” and are playing on a team?

I also think the fact, that several other classes have strong easy mode specs, pushes shatter out even further. When you are still learning, it can be frustrating to die repeatedly to forgiving builds.

In none organized matches, once people have figured out you are a shatter mesmer, you have the back paddling condition ranger always targeting you and the rank 2 thief jumping in for his backstab. Since you are somewhat slow and rather squishy, you will find that people chase you all over the map.

You are also a beloved target for the mesmer phantasm build.

I find shatter to be the most fun and challenging spec to play, but for the time being, I have to practice in a rather hostile environment, where many classes and specs pose a challenge and where many of their mistakes are forgiven while mines are not.

Qaelyn.7612:

This is what happens to me. Many games, I find 3 or 4 of my teammates in a big dogfight somewhere, usually at mid

A big fight on mid point is fine though. It is an important node to get hold of if possible.
I found my “team” to not fight on or for any point most of the time. ^^

And then there was match, where one player actually did communicate (rare). Sadly he/she decided, that map chat was the place to tell where he/she was going.

And then there was the match, where 2 people decided to stand afk at the spawn point.

And then there was the match where people kept running in to mid solo and basically working as a point accumulator for the opposing team.

For me, Solo q was a fairly frustrating experience. ^^

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

I assume you are a mesmer.

Heres your problem you assume your team is always a herd of cats. Then, you are also facing a herd of enemy cats. If you bring more team utility dont you think your allied cats will have more of an advantage to beat the oposing team?

Please post your build so I can be of further assistance.

Regardless of class, build. Every combination of those has its weaknesses and strenghts. When entering a match, acknowledge what does your team have and what does the enemy team have? What is your team lacking or needs to do in order to overcome or atleast minimize the enemies strenght. Try new opening strategies with your team and evaluate how well they work versus certain comps and what went wrong when it failed? When you die, what could have YOU done better?

These are just some tips to help you improve as a soloqr and as a player.

In an ideal world I agree 100% with your philosophy.
Problem just is: Do you even get a group you can consider a team?

I usually pug the team q, I have only played solo q 12 times in total I think, but at one point was in group with 3 guards and a spirit ranger.
You should think one of them would get the bright idea of either capping or defending something.

That was not the case. I got to watch my entire “team” chase one enemy player around the map while I was alone against the rest of his team.
All I could do was cap or decap and then run for my life to cap/decap something else.
Most of my other solo q games matched this experience.

At the lower levels of mmr, there is not much teamwork going on at all.
I think you are right in your points, but I think the teamwork is more likely to happen once you raise your mmr, which is what the OP has issues with in the first place.

If you can survive long enough to have your weapon swap off cool down, swapping weapons sometimes unstocks you as well.

hints.8036:

Another thing I noticed is that he use Phase Retreat to get on the bridge. I know you can use Blink for that. Is this still viable? How do you make sure it Phase Retreat up instead of just back? Is it just a camera angle?

You need to have your back towards it while using Phase Retreat and you need to know exactly where to stand to make sure you go up and not back. At this particular spot, notice the little grey rocks on the ground. They are an easy mark for where to stand.

“The game client lost its connection to the server.”
I get this pretty much every single day and it is starting to get annoying.
I am not losing connection to TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, which I am running simultaneously and I am not using a wireless connection.

Qaelyn.7612:

With all due respect, until you guys fix the 4v5 and similar issues, none of the rest matters.

I must say I very much agree with this.
It is one of the most demotivating aspects about tournaments.

Zoid.2568:

Hotjoin is mostly 10vs10, i rarely see 5vs5 maps there so hotjoin is kind of chaotic and not structured at all, it’s rather boring and frustrating. We can make our own servers, so 5vs5 isn’t a problem, but they are very rare.

You could set up a filter to find the 5vs5 hotjoin matches. I have no problem finding 5vs5 at least.

Bsgapollo.5364:

If this goes through, and I happen to make 1 lousy mistake, then I’ll have all the time in the world to do whatever the kitten I want since I won’t be playing this game anymore.

Actually, as others have explained, it would have to be 3 “mistakes”.

Caffynated.5713:

What I’ve taken away from this forum:

Warriors think everything is balanced
Necros think everything is balanced except warriors
Engies think everything is balanced except warriors and necros
.
.
.
Eles think everything is OP

lol ^^

Thedenofsin.7340:

TRoopEr.5364:

I will repeat.

People whine about warriors because it is way to easy to play and way to easy to stomp bad players. And majority(vaste majority) of gw2 spvp playerbase rightnow and past 3 month are bad.

remove kitten lyssa from game and all happy.

Warriors have as much mobility as a thief, the best health regen in the game, (and it’s passive!), the second best access to stability, heavy armor, some of the best condition removal in the game, and an AoE fire field that can permanently cover an entire node.

Give any profession that much capability and they’ll WTFstomp everyone else.

It’s dumb.

@Thedenofsin, If I understand it correctly, I think what TRoopEr is explaining is that a warrior is very strong against anyone that is not super experienced.

I spectated a hot-join match the other day. There was an inexperienced D/D thief and an inexperienced hambow warrior.
The warrior never used his hammer. He stayed in longbow and was back paddling while fighting the thief. The thief was a bit more active, he did weapon swap and he did dodge.
None of them was any good, but the warrior still won. Once he faced better people, and still didn’t weapon swap, didn’t dodge, didn’t do anything really other than shooting his bow, of course he lost.

Now you can say; that was a hot-join match and that tournaments are different. Hopefully, people are a bit more experienced.

However, the system will try to pair you with people that are at approximately at the same skill level as yourself.

If one class performs a lot better with a lower skill level than the others, then that class will have an advantage when facing players at their own level.
If one class/spec is a lot easier to play than the other is, and if the two are not a hard counter to one another, then the person playing the hard spec/class will have to be a lot more experienced to win.

I am not one of the 50 players mentioned, so I can’t say if the warrior is still a problem in the fights that concern a very small percentage of the total players base.
Since most of us do not belong amongst those 50, it is a problem for many of us.

I guess in the perfect world, each class should have hard and easy specs to play.
The hard to play spec (if played correctly) should outperform the easy to play spec.
That is not the case for some classes/specs at the moment. The warrior is not alone in this though.

I do not mind the map in hotjoin. I´ll just spectate and go stretch my legs.
Those that have fun knocking each other over ledges, stunning people on the glass plates can do that just fine without me.

I do not think Skyhammer has any place in solo queue and will continue to hope for its removal.