Guild Wars 2

If you get hit by moa with a 5 second cast time, I laugh at you whether you are on my team or not.

According to Wiki, Moa has 1 second cast time. So, things like Decoy→Moa would be virtually guaranteed to land.

Game isn’t fine, and the sky isn’t falling. People need to keep pressure on the important issues while still just remembering to breathe.

The thing is, in two weeks the game will be two months old. What changes have we had? Precious few. Instead of seeing bug fixes to things that don’t work well or at all, we’re seeing nerfs to things that do work, sometimes too well. Tons of events/challenges/etc., are still bugged.

Class balance is an absolute joke. Some may disagree, but it’s pretty glaring. Just look at downed state abilities of various classes, and it’s pretty obvious to anyone with more than 1/8th functioning brain. All this stuff needs to be looked at, evaluated, rebalanced, etc.

And clock is ticking. Just yesterday two interesting games came out, and the game lost some players. In the coming 2 months, tons more games will come out, and we will lose more players. Is the sky falling? Is the game dying? No, probably not. Though I will say that I have not been placed into overflow at Lion’s Arch so far this week, not even primetime. Not once. Could be people just are somewhere else farming, but probably not. I also went into the Mists this morning, and aside from myself saw 2 people. Yeah, early morning, but usually there’d be at least a dozen.

And the absolute lack of communication from ANet is really starting to aggravate people as well. At least it does me. The recent blog was really…empty. A lot of wishy-washy stuff and not much substance.

Just saying…

Well i have to say that the sheer amount of players using grenade kits for damage is rather disturbing.

Based on ANet’s performance so far, it won’t take long until they notice and nerf them into the ground. Then we can go back to regular weapons… Sadly this is the only outcome I’m seeing to current weapons vs grenades situation. Rather than bring other stuff up to snuff, they’ll just nerf whatever players managed to get to work well.

Could be worse. At least it’s not AoE like Time Warp or Mass Invisibility.

I do find it funny how last patch nerfed phantasm cooldowns, which mostly harms the Mesmer class in PvE, and did nothing for things like Moa. Which IS fairly cheesy in at least that it kills so many other elite skills (like Necro Lich Form).

You guys….

First off, Mesmer CANNOT have as many abilities as Engineer. It is simply impossible.

No correlation between skills and difficulty? So pressing 1 and pressing 1-2-3-4-5-6 is the same? Especially when 1-2 are only suitable for one situation, 3-4 for another, and 5-6 for yet another? And 1 and 5 synergize, but not 6 and 3? And keeping all of that flowing, because that’s how Engi is meant to be played (no CD to switch between kits or weapons)?

And if you are going to bring more weapons into that, well, I guess that adds what, another 7 or so to Engi, which brings total up to 31? And remember that if you switch utilities, your toolbelt skills change as well. Which is another what, 29 possible skills? For a total of 70 skills you need to know about, learn and use effectively as situation dictates? Yeeeah. Show me a Mesmer doing that.

Seriously? Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me Mesmer is harder? Come on! You can’t honestly believe that. And if you do…well…I can’t help you. Nobody can.

@brogarn….. ohhh, that explains much. there’s been a few times (not many though) where i’m happily nading away and poof… my health goes down by a large margin and i find myself struggling to stay alive. So it’s YOU guys ;-)

This reminds me, do grenades actually get reflected back? I was under the impression that AoEs of any kind don’t get reflected back, even if they show as “projectiles” graphically. I’m reasonably sure when I was in the level 65-75 zone I was tossing grenades at those stone golems that have reflection, and grenades didn’t bounce back, while pistol shots did.

Mesmers are the Eve online of GW2

Snort…

Try playing an Engineer with 3-4 kits, then come back and tell me how Mesmer has a learning curve… :P Seriously dude, you have no idea.

Simple maths – each utility slot can unlock 5 extra skills. With 4 kits, that’s about 18 new abilities (since first 3 of the medkit are identical). Plus 5 skills from your actual weapons, for a total of 23 abilities! Where on the Mesmer you are looking at 10 abilities max, plus 4 utilities, for a whopping 14 total. And 23 > 14. Instead of 4 shatters, you have your 4 toolkit abilities. And depending on kits and spec, those abilities change and/or behave differently, wherekittenters always behave the same.

Seriously, there’s absolutely no comparison in complexity between Mesmer and Engineer. Unless of course you just go elixirs/rifle. But that’s like a warrior with signets and rifle too – run and gun, braindead spec.

My first char was a Mesmer. First alt an Engineer, nearing 80 now.

And quite honestly, I don’t see what the big deal about Mesmers is. The class is weak in PvE, comparatively speaking. They can do a lot, but they do it soooo sloooowly. I was just soloing earlier this evening on my Engi right next to a Mesmer 1 level above me, and I was killing 3 mobs to his 1. And he wasn’t doing anything wrong. The class is just slooooow in PvE. After playing my Engi with permanent swiftness since level 20, I have serious trouble even loggin in on my Mesmer.

Having said that, Mesmer is a really easy class in PvP. About 90% of people still have difficulty keeping the eye on the ball (that is, being able to tell the mesmer from the clones). 99% of people still try to stomp a clone, even though the real mesmer has a big red skull and arrow over his head. And as long as people behave dumber than the game’s PvE AI, they’re easy to beat.

However, on the flipside, go to PvP forums and see how much whining there is about the Mesmers. What does that mean? Nerfs! Lots and lots and lots of juicy nerfs! That’s what you’ve got to look forward to when you make your Mesmer.

Bottom line – try it. Who knows, you might enjoy it. Personally, if you made me pick between Engi and Mesmer, right now, I would choose Engi hands down. Just much more enjoyable. However if facerolling your way to victory in PvP is important, go with Mesmer. Considerably easier, and gets exponentially easier the dumber the players you face are.

Sigh. Many valid points in this thread. But one thing I just want to add is that ANet really needs to stop and ask themselves “Is this the kind of PvP we want?” Do we really want this kind of insta-gibbed nonsense? Regardless of whether there’s a counter or not.

Most MMOs go through this phase. I’ve seen WoW footage with level 19 Ambush rogue 1-shotting pretty much everyone. I’ve played SWTOR where an Operative was pretty much guaranteed to kill anyone with an insanely long knockdown – if it went off, you’d be dead before you got up, it’s that simple. Etc., etc. But is this something you want to be the “norm” in your game?

If yes, just tell us. Myself, personally, I won’t hold it against you. I’ll just stop wasting time on this game, and go to waste time in some other game. But you need to communicate your intentions better.

It’s funny, I was thinking of making a post about this exact topic.

I mean, I still remember music from Storm Peaks in WoW, I felt it fit so amazingly well to the theme of the zone – an ancient race pushed to the brink of extinction. Really just sad and melancholy theme that worked fantastically well. Or the Nagrand theme that really reinforced the feeling of vastness of that zone. There’s many more examples like that.

Age of Conan also had a decent soundtrack, for the most part, that fit the zones well.

But in GW2, the lack of variety in zones, plus the same bland and generic quests, plus lack of music really just smear the entire PvE experience into something really unimpressive.

Which is really sad, I think, because graphically the game is pretty good. But between the lack of variety of mobs, lack of variety in zones and lack of variety in music, the whole PvE experience doesn’t really leave a mark it could have. Fell miles short of how the world felt in WoW. Though admittedly fast travel killed the feeling of a cohesive world for me much more than music ever could. Fast travel instead of mounts was the single biggest mistake in GW2 design, I think.

As someone who played many other chars, you will NEVER level as fast on a Mesmer as on “real” classes. It’s simple math. Take my latest alt – an Engineer, which is nearing 80 now.

First, starting at level 20, Engineer gets permanent swiftness. That is, 100%+ uptime of +33% movement speed. A Mesmer, at best, gets 50% swiftness uptime, especially at lower levels. This alone means my Engineer will move between mobs, events, etc., roughly 50% faster than my Mesmer could.

This is simple, undeniable math. If I have 100% swiftness uptime, and you have 50% swiftness uptime, I’m twice as fast as you are, all else being equal. This alone means, on average, an Engineer will level 50% faster.

Next, the range. Engineer past level 60 has 1500 range. Mesmer, 1200 range max. Need I say more? I can kill mobs from further away, with less kiting.

Next, the AoE. Engineer has more. WAY more. Anyone who says different needs to get out of la-la land and/or have their head examined. They’re not in the same league. Not even close in fact.

Next, underwater Engineer is godlike. Somewhat nerfed last patch two days ago, but still pretty godly. Way, way, WAY better than Mesmer. Again, this is not really debatable. I butcher underwater content on my Engi that gave me serious trouble as a Mesmer. To the point where I took a trait that makes me automatically drink an elixir at 75% health, only to realize that in 90% of the fights I never get to 75%! Between constant AoE blinds, brutal damage and insane 1500 range, things just melt.

Etc., etc.

My point is, when you see other people leveling faster than you, there are many possible reasons for it. More time spent playing, more crafting, etc., etc. But as someone who went through the EXACT same content twice with two different classes just now, sometimes it’s just the class. By my estimation, my Engi leveled AT LEAST twice as fast as my Mesmer. Probably faster. Just from the core advantages the class gives.

And just to ruin your day – from all the whining about Mesmers on PvP forum, most likely by the time you get to max level the class will be nerfed even more.

I gotta be honest, I was pretty upset by the changes. Because they’re rather pointless, really.

I mean, did they do anything that will stop the PvP whining about Mesmers? Nope. The few extra second CDs really aren’t much of a game-changer.

Did they do anything to make Mesmers weaker in PvE? Well, did Mesmers need to be made weaker in PvE? I don’t think I ever saw anyone argue that Mesmer was THE best PvE class in the first place. So were nerfs needed in PvE? Personally I don’t think so. I always found Mesmer to be a little weak on PvE side, especially in heavily camped Orr DEs.

So, why change it? I guess what I’m trying to say is that the changes really make little sense to me. They solve nothing, it’s more like a placebo so that other classes would look and say “Aha, Mesmers got nerfed!” and be happy. But if that’s their reason for these changes, this game is bang in trouble…

Personally at this stage I feel they need to communicate with their player base. Tell people why these changes are being made, on what basis, and with what goal in mind. It would really help.

Gaiawolf.8261:

If you are just dodging like a maniac to buy time, then yes, it will take longer. The trick is to make your time work for you instead of just for defense. For example, when I finish my blurred frenzy and need to dive away, I roll through my warden.

Consider what you’re saying though. To do Blurred Frenzy, mobs need to be in your face. How much damage have you done to them before they get there? With grenade Engi, melee mobs are at least half-dead before they get to melee range. And this is not using the slowing grenade, and have a ton of conditions on them. And all of this is AoE, with 1500 range. Can a Mesmer compete? Nope.

If you run to melee range as your opener, you’re probably running slow (without Into the Void, at best it has 50% uptime). Engi runs fast (100%+ swiftness uptime). Again, superior to Mesmer.

OK, so you got the mobs, did your Blurred Frenzy and rolled through Warden. If you rolled through him, there’s no guarantee he’s still swinging, or that you can remain there. Mobs could just run through his AoE really quick taking a few hits (especially true of Risen with frenzy). Granted, until 2 patches ago with Phantasmal Haste he’d be swinging non-stop. Now, there’s a 6-7 second break between his attacks, and he attacks for 5 seconds. And he starts attacking as soon as summoned. He could also be dead to a melee mob, I often have my iWarden 1-shot as he phases in when summoned.

And what is better, iWarden or Mines? I vote for mines. AoE blind that keeps refreshing, with a huge area of effect. Burn mine, confusion mine, etc. I’m also reasonably sure a mine (basic #1 skill) will out-DPS iWarden. According to Wiki, Warden swings 12 times with base 30 base damage. Mine does 407 AoE base. That’s 360 vs 407. And mine takes a second do explode, during which you already put down another. And another. And another. No need to dodge, as AoE blind mine is still keeping everything from hitting you. Compared to Warden that does his damage over 5 seconds, and mine does it instantly.

I dunno… I mean, I admit I haven’t played my Mesmer much lately. I just can’t handle the tortoise-slow movement around the map after being spoiled with 100% swiftness uptime. But in PvE my Engi absolutely rocks the socks of any Mesmer. Mine or anyone else’s. I often PvE side by side with other folks, just to see how fast my kill speed is relative to them, and grenade/bomb Engi does it considerably faster with a lot less movement needed (and hence less possibility of unwanted aggro).

Ocellaris.8362:

You kidding? The DE mobs are dead before you can get one of your shatters to run all the way into a group of mobs and explode.

Clearly the guy above has not played a mesmer, or maybe played it to level 15.

Illusionary Persona lets you Shatter YOURSELF. It works without any Illusions out.

Looks like there is only one person in this thread who hasn’t played a Mesmer before *cough*lollie*cough*

Shattering yourself only counts as one clone, doesn’t it? A single shatter is relatively pathetic, in all respects. It’s great in PvP when a Thief jumps you so you can just use Distortion and block out most of his burst for the next second, but in PvE? Lackluster at best.

Well, it’s hardly shocking, really. Despite what ANet says, the game is GROSSLY unbalanced. Pretty much anyone can see it.

And so it is no surprise that downed state skills are GROSSLY out of balance between different classes as well. Mesmer and Thief have very useful ones. Classes like Engineer have crappy ones. The #2 ability actually pulls the enemy TO you! So they don’t have to run to you to finish you off. Brilliant, right?

The issue isn’t so much the downed state itself or the damage you do in it, but rather the different class abilities. Some classes take a very long time to kill (Thief), others moderate but can pretty effectively fight back (Mesmer), and others just plain suck (Engi).

The game needs to be balanced. It’s that simple. Right now it’s a gory mess. Not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s not “pretty good” as they claim either.

If that’s the case the nerf will have nothing to do with grenades performance compared to other classes and only because there are lots of engineers using them.

That’s just it. So far, we really don’t get told what the rationale behind the changes is.

What I mean is, OK, take last night’s patch (7/10). The thief nerf? Tons of people complaining in PvP forum. Mesmer nerfs? Same reason. Elementalist nerf? I honestly have no idea where that came from. I can honestly say I have never ever heard anyone complain about that skill. Or Eles in general.

So, why they picked on that skill to nerf it? It’s an elite with 180 sec CD that only works underwater. Was it so powerful that it needed a 33% damage nerf? Were there tons of Eles in the water doing it every 3 mins with some fantastic effect? Possibly, but again we just don’t know.

And if we’re talking elite skills, what about Mesmer’s Moa, which incidentally counters most other elites (including Necromancer’s Lich Form)? If any elite was going to get nerfed, that should have been it. But it is still here. Reason? I don’t see it.

You have to master kiting and/or hit and run tactics while managing your illusions

Problem is, all of this takes time. And the more time it takes, the slower your progress. Be that PvE or PvP.

When I play my Mesmer, I kite and I dodge. When I play my Engi, I don’t have to. Simply chaining blinds and bringing forth brutal damage (most of which is either 360 AoE or at the very least a cone), things my level die before they can even get through all the blinds. And those blinds are part of the DPS rotation, they happen when I shoot things, they happen when I blow things up, etc. These are not CC skills like Magic Bullet.

Can you solo just about anything on a Mesmer? Yes, absolutely. Can most other classes do the same, but faster? In my opinion? Yes, absolutely. I could be mistaken, but my Engi alt is nearing 80 in less than half the time it took my Mesmer, largely thanks to massive AoE and permanent swiftness, and so far I haven’t encountered anything I could do on a Mesmer that I couldn’t on the Engi, and faster.

Zandur.5012:

I predict a nerf to grenades without the much needed buffs / reworks / bug fixes to anything else. Then all of our builds will be equally as useless and thus give us options again.

QFT…

As sad as I am to admit it, this is pretty much guaranteed. I bet someone at ANet already looked at stats, saw that something like 80% of Engis use Grenade Kit and said “Gee whiz, I guess grenades need to be nerfed, clearly they’re too strong.” And then we can all go back and play our warriors.

I’m really losing hope for this game. Communication is almost nonexistent. Bug fixes few and far apart. And while not fixing bugs and broken traits, they’re nerfing stuff that works. Just makes me want to pull my hair out. Fortunately I haven’t got any.

Really wish they’d just talk to us. Let us know what their vision for the class is. Will turrets ever scale? Or are they supposed to suck? What about all those godawful useless traits that don’t stack with anything? Etc., etc.

Agree. Ironically enough, I get more mileage out of Confusion on my Engineer than on my Mesmer.

Static Shot – 2-stack of confusion, 3 sec duration, 15 sec CD. Bounces between multiple targets (enemies only!) and has a very long bounce range. Also blinds and does damage, but that’s beside the point.

Concussion Bomb – 5-stack of confusion, 5 sec duration, 18 sec CD. Also does AoE damage.

Just chaining these back to back already gives comparable confusion to Mesmer’s. Plus, since there’s no clones to worry about, all mobs come at me. But since Static Shot has a blind effect, I take no damage. And I also always drop Smoke Bomb, which is an AoE blind field. So I can just stand there while mobs kill themselves swinging at me and missing.

Seriously, works better than on the Mesmer. Faster too – two instant cast attacks with no prep work.

Fun is relative. To me, the class is very fun. In PvP. In PvE, it is one of the worst classes I played so far.

Viable? Again, yes. In PvP. But in PvE, no, not really. Ever since I started my new Engineer and began to seriously level, I can’t really play my Mesmer any more. Lack of reliable, spammable, extremely long range damage and insane mobility (100% 5-second sprint, and permanent 33% swiftness) totally kill it. And when it comes to farming DEs, Engineer is just so much better it’s not even debatable.

Dear ANet,

I find your latest attempts at class balancing disturbing in that so many traits and abilities of so many classes are not yet properly working. This is completely ignoring quality of life changes that will also have to be made – like Engineer Grenade Kit, where spamming 1 key will cause carpal tunnel syndrome to far too many players.

Instead of fixing these changes, you are making changes to classes, such as increasing cooldowns, switching skill positions, etc.

FIX first. THEN buff or nerf as needed. Doing it now is largely pointless, as things will change drastically once traits kick in. But as it is right now, when a class barely functions due to bugs, useless traits that nobody in their right mind will EVER take, etc., changing it just ticks players off.

Speaking of useless traits, take a look at traits like Engineer’s Leg Mods trait. The 10% speed boost doesn’t stack with swiftness. Making it a perfectly useless trait. Either make it 20%, or make it stack. Or remove it. Since beta I’ve not seen a single Engineer build incorporate this trait. And if you run an internal check on your DB to see how many people picked it, you’ll see almost nobody did I bet. When things are in this state, how can you even balance anything?

Fix first. Break later.

After playing my Engineer, I can no longer play my Mesmer. Just too darn slow.

On Engineer, every time you toggle a kit (or refresh a kit), you get 5 seconds of swiftness. It has an internal 5 sec CD. But Medkit #5 gives 10 seconds of swiftness on 20 sec CD, and stacks with this 5 second swiftness.

Meaning,
Swap to Medkit → +5 second swiftness → 5 seconds remaining
Medkit #5 → +10 second swiftness → 15 seconds remaining
-5 seconds later-
Refresh Medkit (just tap Medkit hotkey) → +5 seconds → 15 seconds remaining
-5 seconds later-
Medkit #5 → +10 second swiftness → 20 seconds remaining
Refresh Medkit → +5 second swiftness → 25 seconds remaining

In other words, every 20 seconds you gain 10 seconds to your swiftness, which stacks.

Really quite awesome. And this is not counting traits that give 5 seconds of swiftness on crit, or +10% speed whenever you run with a grenade/mine/mekittenit (though sadly this doesn’t stack with swiftness).

Throw in Super Speed on Slick Shoes → 100% speed increase for 5 seconds, and it’s bye-bye birdie.

My Mesmer by comparison feels like a crawling brick. Sad, really.

OP, sorry but I too do not see this as an exploit. It’s a trait relatively deep in a tree, to allow the turrets to be ground-cast. If an Engi invests in that, he should be able to place them wherever he can place them, and it should NOT be fixed. Otherwise this completely nullifies that trait.

I certainly don’t see it as an exploit. It’s rather the whole point of the trait. Without it, might as well replace the trait with something useful.

Well, let’s be honest here – grenades were too good underwater. We all knew that. When we can wipe out packs of mobs in the time it takes some classes to kill one, I mean something’s gotta give.

Overall, I’m actually fairly happy. I mean, look at what they did to Mesmers. It barely does anything in PvP, but they got wrecked in PvE with this change. Phantasms will still be on cooldown when you finish killing one mob, and you can’t start on another until the cooldown is off. And phantasms still die when target dies, so multi-mob pulls will be a huge pain.

Be happy. It could have been worse. A lot worse.

It baffles me that so many people are struggling with the class??? I was fighting mobs 4-5 levels higher than me practically the entire time until I reached 80.

Most classes can do this. I was fighting multiple risen 8 levels above me on my Engi this morning. The only difference was, instead of a single rotation it took two rotations and a few autoshots to down them.

About the storyline missions, some NPCs in missions are insane. Namely, Doctor Howler if you chose Street Rat human background. Huge damage, tons of conditions and an immense health pool. Only way I found to beat him as a level 9 Engi was to use two turrets (healing and rifle) as a distraction or physical shield/line of sight.

Also I found personal story missions usually are very demanding in AoE department. For example, on Mesmer I struggled fairly heavily, especially against multiple speedy Risen. Like sometimes you’d have 6-10 frenzied Risen chasing you. But I did the same thing on my Engi just by AoEing them all in under 10 seconds and taking zero damage due to juggling blinds from mines, grenades and flamethrower.

Said it before, and I’ll say it again – Mesmer is a horrible, horrible PvE class. Just horrible. The sad irony is, with so many noobs not knowing how the class works (since we are the least played class, according to ANet) complain about it in PvP and ANet just said they’re “watching Mesmers”, which likely means a slew of nerfs. Which will only make the class worse in PvE.

The class will improve with talents. But so will every other class in the game. You’ll just get a few more options. Level 40 is a big one, because you can get a “clone when you dodge” trait in Dueling line, for example. But other classes get toys just as nifty. My Engi for example got a “mine when you dodge”, which works at least as well as the clone, considering how much damage a mine will do, and that damage is AoE. Whereas with clones you’ll have to wait for enough, then shatter them and hope it works.

There are basic tips and tricks though. If you use Staff, then the basic combo should include Chaos Storm placed either offensively on the enemy or defensively over yourself and your clones. If you use Phantasmal Retreat (Staff #2 ability) inside Chaos Storm, you will get a free Chaos Armor. Then you can use the real Chaos Armor. Or get another free one from another glamour, like Null Field. This alone will boost your survival immensely.

Then, with 10 points in…what was it…Inspiration line, you could have a trait that gives you vigor every time you shatter. Vigor allows more dodges. And dodges create more clones. But you will still be nowhere near as dodgy as an Engineer, who can do 6+ dodges back to back (Rune of Adventurer restoring 100% of endurance when you heal, coupled with Medkit heal on 10 sec CD, plus Elixir R instantly refilling your endurance once again). Each dodge creates a mine. Each mine, when it explodes, will damage enemies, apply conditions AND possibly heal you and everyone nearby (albeit for a smallish amount).

Do you know how with a Mesmer in PvE you have to dodge and create tons of illusions and shatter and blow cooldowns and dodge, dodge, dodge? Well, as an Engineer, I just spec mines, pull 6-10 mobs (AT LOW LEVEL TOO!), then do Mine #4 (AoE blind field, so I take no damage), Big Ol’ Bomb that will go off in about 3 seconds with a big bang and a knockback/knockdown, then cycle Mine #3 (confusion AoE), Mine #2 (poison AoE) and Mine #2 (burning AoE). Then they are all sent flying, and most of them die. And I don’t take a single hit doing it. Takes a total of about 5 seconds. If there’s any survivors, mop up with a rifle or a flamethrower or just grenade barrage. Longest cooldown blown? 30 seconds, untraited, for Big Ol’ Bomb, which strictly speaking isn’t even needed.

There’s really no comparison between two classes in PvE. My Engi feels like a juggernaut of mass destruction. Mesmer is just a dainty butterfly by comparison.

Otherwise, the Illusions will chase the fleeing opponent until they reach max control distance, and then promptly fizzle. Turrets will remain even outside of max distance.

Dude, you really should play an Engi with turrets to realize just how much they suck.

For one, they don’t target whatever you’re targeting. They pick a target at random, and switch often. This alone makes them a totally unviable choice in anything but a 1v1, because they will spread damage all over the place and without focus fire you’ll never take anyone down.

Second, they die from a sneeze. Because, unlike illusions, they don’t scale with the Engi’s stats. Some people said they do scale with power/condition damage, but not vitality and toughness. But those results were inconclusive – tooltip changed, but the actual damage seemed to remain the same. Even fully traited, they’re a joke.

Seriously, turrets are in such a pathetic state right now. Long cooldowns, immobile, relatively short range, pathetic damage, too easy to destroy.

Kalar, it’s not the question of focus or skill, it’s a question of how much work is done for the player by the AI, automatically.

Part of the issue with the Mesmer is that if you summon an illusion, like iBerserker, it will follow the target, attack it and cripple it, all done automatically with a single keypress. It will also continue to do so at set intervals until destroyed.

By comparison, there’s really nothing my Engineer can do that will perform the same thing. I can deploy a turret, but it won’t move. I can throw a grenade, but this is me throwing a grenade, not an automaton AI. Or take Phantasmal Defender and Phantasmal Disenchanter that automatically (passively you might say) perform certain tasks, and are again mobile.

I’m not totally anti-pet, but that’s just an awful lot of mechanization, where other classes have none at all. I mean, until this week, Engineers didn’t even have the option to autoattack on kits. And now that they do on some, on others (like grenade kit) it is still finger-breaking spam. Just the sheer APM (Actions Per Minute) some classes are forced into is a whole order of magnitude higher than say Mesmer Legion build where you spawn 3 phantasms and kite, reapplying as necessary.

Another aspect of pet AI is countering stealth. For example, in a Mesmer vs Anything but Mesmer, when Mesmer uses Decoy→Blink, he can be hard to reacquire quickly. But in a Mesmer vs Mesmer, same Decoy→Blink won’t fool the illusions. As soon as your stealth fades, illusions will head straight for you, tipping off the other Mesmer as to your location. Gives a strong and unfair advantage, IMHO.

Poplik.8697:

iirc this giant has some kitten aoes, maybe he wiped them right as they spawned?

There’s a number of issues that could be causing it.

Momentarily dropping combat, with stealth, evasion or roll sometimes causes it. Where you shouldn’t really drop combat, but it drops, and illusions immediately despawn.

Another thing I think might hapkitten when you spawn an illusion, it doesn’t immediately have full health. That is, I sometimes spawn iWarden, and let the mob beat on it for a bit. Fully traited for bonus HP, it can take 2-3 hits. BUT, sometimes when it spawns, before it even phases in or starts attacking, the mob quickly attacks it and 1-shots it. Which is incredibly annoying given how long the Warden’s cooldown is.

No, but too many non player chars is, such as clones, and necro pets etc, its just chaotic and horrible to play.

esports needs to be clean and crisp with everything absolutely deliberate.

You know, I didn’t think about this, but it is definitely a problem. It is a bit chaotic and messy that way. This is not to say there shouldn’t be pet classes, but when several classes can have 3 or more pets (including spirit weapon Guard and spirit pet Ranger), it gets really weird.

Ruining PvP? I doubt it, just a lot of FOTM going on right now. As you only need to get to level 2 to enjoy a class in sPvP. This will continue with any perceived overpowered or just easy to succeed with class. As soon as the word spreads, you’ll see a disproportionate amount.

And at this stage, there’s a lot of L2P still happening. A lot of people who complain about Mesmers are the people who still fall for clones. And a lot of people who complain about Thieves are the people who stop attacking when thief stealths, even when he’s rooted. I’ve seen many cases where if the enemy just continued the rotation blindly, I’d have lost hands down.

Another key element to Thief/Mersmer that IS perhaps broken is “I do damage while I’m in stealth”. Both classes can do this. Mesmer with illusions/conditions, Thief with conditions/openers. Meanwhile though, both classes rely rather heavily on this, because they don’t have the durability for anything else, and in Mesmer’s case also the mobility.

Also, both classes have arguably very strong 1v1 epic skills (Moa, Thieves’ Guild), and both classes are in general very strong in 1v1. Had they been weaker in 1v1, I guess we’d see a lot less complaints.

BUT, the corollary of being good in 1v1 is that you’ll be a victim of blame game. Suppose A runs into B, and B is a Mesmer. A loses. Is A going to blame HIMSELF for losing, even when the fault was clearly his? Can A be honest with himself enough? Doubtful. Can A admit B is perhaps a better player? Again, not bloody likely. Hence, he’ll blame B’s class for all the evil in the world.

Still, would be a lot better if they just made Grenade #1 a targeted auto-attack. And Grenade #2 would be spammable ground attack with a little less burning than currently but no CD. Would make the whole kit much more user-friendly.

It’s “further ado”, as in “Much Ado About Nothing”. Adieu is just farewell in French.

The gun looks nice though.

Would be interesting. Also I had mixed success bringing a Phantasmal Defender into it, which most folks don’t do. But when I did use it, the gain in durability was very palpable.

I’m thinking the bounce was done this way for a reason – it was not meant to give us Might and allow us to stack it. It is more about friendly targets, if any.

What I mean is, when you toss it, and it’s just you and 1 enemy, it’ll just not and not bounce at all if you are far enough. If there’s a friendly bashing on the mob, he’ll get a Might. If you are close enough it’ll bounce back to you with Might, but that I see more an an unavoidable side-effect since GS isn’t really designed to work upclose (hence 1200 range and knockback).

Also it might look a little funky if you toss a sword 1200, especially with extra bounce trait, and then for the next 5 seconds or so it would keep bouncing between you and target (factoring in flight time at 1200 range and 3 bounces). Would look a tad redonculous.

But this is just a wild guess. How much of a Mesmer class is intentional, how much is bugged and how much totally broken, nobody knows since the Devs don’t really delve into it in any great detail. What I mean is, before iWarden fix, there was a good percentage of Mesmers who believed that Phantasmal Haste and iWarden with Waden’s Feedback were working as intended.

jellyman.7360:

I need a build with no nades. I’m tired of them being so strong that they’re in so many builds.

You pretty much need either grenades or mines. I actually do just fine with pistols and mines. Grenades are just for when I can’t be bothered to run all the way over there somewhere to do AoE and want to do it from where I currently am. With 1500 range, it’s pretty much “if I can see it, I can AoE it”. Just too darn convenient.

Turrets are nice and all, but their stationary nature and cooldowns are a killer, for me at least. Leveling is just such a mobile process that it totally clashes with turret spec.

You know, I think it could be as simple as the DPS you do relative to other people. For example, if I just stand back and plink with my pistols, I do good damage and tap most mobs, but don’t really get much aggro. This is in the DEs.

But when I go absolute ape with grenades and bombs – especially right after Grenade Barrage, I usually get horrendous focus hate coming my way. Mine #4 helps, but there were a few times where I basically got “1 shot” when it wore off. That is, I had so many mobs trying to pummel me that when blinds finally stopped, even half of them whacking me once was more than enough to drop me.

And, to be fair, between grenades, mines and the conditions they apply, my AoE damage is bordering on absurd and is more or less spammable. So it makes perfect sense. If I was one of those mobs, I’d try to kill the Engi too.

So in world events I tend to sit back and fight the lesser mobs/objectives while others bum rush the dragon. Doing this I get gold without ever even attacking the dragon.

You have to understand that getting a gold medal is just the tip of the iceberg. Classes with high mob tap percentage get, on average, as much XP from kills as they get from the gold medal award. And way more than the award in loot.

I kid you not. Make an Engineer, carry both grenades, bombs and at least one AoE turret. Do events with tons and tons of mobs. And just watch your XP bar leap forward. Do NOT loot until event is over. Just stand there and look at piles and piles and piles of sparkling corpses as far as the eye can see. For me, it’s not uncommon to start an event with totally empty bags (currently 12-slots, I think) and by the end of the event there’s not enough room for all the loot. And this is after I deposit collectibles, it still isn’t enough room. That’s how much loot and cash I get. This is really not an exaggeration.

People who say “I got gold medal” and call it a day are really missing out on a ton more XP, loot, money, etc., compared to other classes.

Nice to have an update.

BUT, I really don’t get how you guys can watch anything or even consider any balancing changes when so many skills and traits don’t even function properly. You guys are watching Mesmers, but Mesmers have three traits off the top of my head that either don’t quite work, or conflict with each other. How can you balance things when the class isn’t even working right yet.

To be fair, the mob tapping issue is only a big problem on high-pop servers where a lot of event farming is going on. And only in DEs, really. If you don’t really care about either one, or move to low pop server, it won’t be (much of) an issue.

Having said that, my first alt was an Engineer. Precisely with DE farming in mind. The class is an absolute AoE beast. Grenades with 1500 range and spammable, turrets, flame walls from the flamer, etc. I’m not sure about others, but so far Engi farms insanely fast. With my build, there’s absolutely no difference between fight 1 mob or 5, the rotation is always the same. The only difference is at the end of the fight you’re looking at 1 corpse or 5. Speed doesn’t suffer one iota.

I actually found this difficult to do on the Mesmer, or not as efficient, because we really have no control over illusion positioning and aggro. As an Engi, I know mobs will all come at me, they won’t get distracted by illusions which tend to go every which way (especially evident with iBerserker). So mobs don’t spread out and are really easy to just AoE down.

Imagine if you will if you could shatter every second, pretty much. That’s Grenade build Engineer. And your shatters have 1500 range, and you can aim them anywhere. Oh, and they can burn, blind, slow, etc. Sound good?

Besides that, the class gets my absolute highest recommendation so far for both complexity and skillcap required. IF you spec for challenge. You can absolutely build a rifle Engineer that plays just like rifle Warrior – just spam 1 and run around like a dolt. Or you can go with a build using 3+ kits, resulting in 20+ abilities including toolbelt. Really makes a Mesmer appear childishly simple by comparison. So, if you’re into that, it’s a nice class to try.

I really like my Mesmer, but lately when I log in I tend to play an Engineer. One word of warning though – Engi is nowhere near as cheesy or easy as Mesmer in PvP. You will have to work for your kills. But at the same time, you can make hilarious survival builds that are just supremely annoying – like running around crapping bombs that also heal you and everyone around (a little bit, but you drop a minimum of 1 every second, plus 1 more on dodge, plus a bunch more if you drop below 25%) on top of damage, and with great regen and excellent survivability. And if push comes to shove, pop Super Speed (+100% speed for 5 seconds) and get the heck out of Dodge. Mesmer is annoying to deal with in PvP, but unnoyingly built Engineer will make you bite the keyboard.

Yeah, I’m sort of thinking this would make us a tad OP.

I would settle for illusions lasting the entire duration of combat. That is, if you are fighting 3 mobs, just because 1st one died, any illusions on it shouldn’t just vanish – they should re-acquire one of the other targets. That would really be a good quality of life change.

Eh, it sort of works. Though ironically I get MUCH better mileage out of it with my Engineer than I do on my Mesmer.

The main thing is to apply the confusion as close to the enemy attack as possible, and remember that if you do with with F2 shatter, this will kill the illusions and the only thing to swing at will be YOU. So it helps to be really close to the mob when you apply confusion – that way he’ll hopefully swing right away.

My personal spec involved confusion and retaliation on shatters, and I’m usually holding Blurred Frenzy ready. So as soon as illusions are gone from a shatter, the mob(s) turn to me, I damage them with Blurred Frenzy while invulnerable, and they eat both the confusion and the retaliation damage.

But on average, you’ll get just that – only one attack at most. Then the confusion will fall off. Even with 33% duration trait it falls off way too fast for my liking. Maybe if Scepter sucked a little less, it would work better.

Then I got to my first zerged DE (Isle Of Janthir) and it was just under 10 minutes long with several waves of Risen. In those 10 minutes I got loot rights on about 5 mobs out of what seemed like 100s. Most of the loot I got was veterans. Meanwhile there was a pile of players standing there swinging away at nothing in a pile… but sure enough mobs would insta-die when they got to that pile, and they were invulnerable before that point. I tried Berserker to no avail mobs were dead before he could spin to win, tried shatter with mirror images, mind stack had too long of a cooldown and seemingly the mobs would die before clones got to them to shatter, and blurred frenzy might have worked for a couple of the mobs if you could time it exactly right, but its not spammable so you would hit the first few mobs but the duration limits the number.

This is pretty much the situation I’ve been talking about this whole time. Which 90% of responders flat-out missed.

And it’s not like I blame you guys! If you’re not on a high pop (or heck, even VERY high pop) server, you probably have no kittenish clue what I’m even talking about. But for many of us (remember, very high pop server) this is daily reality.

Things like shatters, clone summoning, etc., don’t even enter into the equation because mobs are falling dead as they phase into the world, or as their invulnerability drops. That’s how much AoE is coming down at the focal point. In this scenario, Sword AoE is pretty much the only thing that works, but you’ll catch 1 spawn out of several.

Those of you who blame the bots, yes, quite a few ARE bots. I’ve seen some spam for hours and hours without moving. And there’s no way a human can do that since there’s no autocast on ground-target attacks. However, a lot of people aren’t bots. They just play classes with decent AoE.

And a quick comment about Engineer grenade travel time – you can have more than one set of grenades in the air at any one time. Typically I have 3 sets – 1 landing, 1 in the air, and one leaving my hands, at any given time. It is totally spammable and at least 1 AoE explosion per second happens at the spawn point. Most of the grenades also leave a little something behind – fire, poison, confusion, etc. It’s not just flat out damage. And though those aren’t precisely spammable, with the cooldown reduction trait they might as well be, at least that’s how the fire one feels.

And while I totally agree that in some ways our AoE is great – someone earlier said that bounces buff allies, etc. – it doesn’t help me as an individual get my share of loot. It just helps other people get theirs quicker. In a team effort, it’s very good. But in an anonymous zergfest spank-a-tron that is Orr DEs on high pop servers, being nice gets you nothing, or at least a fraction of what you could get with a “real” class. That CAN actually cast AoEs even if there’s no target present, and AoEs that do damage immediately and not next Friday after the sunset.

Sniper kit makes some sense. For one, there are rifles in the game that look exactly like sniper rifles, even down to optical scopes. BUT, that is a niche already occupied, and far more effectively, by grenades.

I don’t suppose Sniper Kit is totally out of the question. It could be done very nicely – including some form of camo, etc. But is it strictly needed? As in “missing class aspect”? I’m not sure. Grenades are fine. Though it would be a nice targeted alternative to grenades’ ground target and still at range.

About turrets and skins? I honestly don’t care about that much. I suppose it can be done, somehow, but just seems like a lot of work for something purely cosmetic at this point. Would be nice as a feature for an expansion a year or so down the road.

Having said that, the way turrets work could use some changing. At the risk of being unpopular, I would LOVE to see turrets and the Tool Kit to function like in Team Fortress 2. Actually, if they simply ripped off the Engineer from TF2, I would be very happy. I absolutely adore that class. Especially if they also copy the teleporter. Currently turrets just seem a little “meh” to me. Very narrow set of conditions where I’d pick them over other kits, and I don’t see many Engis using them.

Totally agree with everyone, even the guy who called people like me bitter.

One word of note, there’s a difference between “easy” and “efficient”. Mesmer, in PvE, is not efficient. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something or never leveled any other class above 20… :P

Dude, I HONESTLY don’t mean to pick on you, but for some reason your posts make me smile every time.

It’s not a bug. Because the Swiftness is associated with a ground object, if it stacked then you could walk over it rapidly and get 10 minutes worth of Swiftness just by stepping on it a bunch.

Yes, it’s probably not a bug. In fact, it’s a likely side-effect of the Veil fix. Back in the day, you could dance back and forth over the Veil line to maintain near 85% stealth in combat, between it and other stealth abilities.

Trouble is, people will HATE you in WvW when you use Focus #4. They accidentally run over it, and boom, whatever swiftness they had is down to 10 seconds. Bug, not a bug. Either way, at some point you WILL be (hopefully politely) asked to keep your focus unused unless you’re pulling people off towers.

Apparently I make a LOT of players very dumb using Into the Void and iLeap/swap all the time.

Umm, yeah, they are. If a simple root is enough to get them killed.

You know what’s amazing? Pulling the whole combo off perfectly, and watching someone eat 8k from my Blurred Frenzy and 7k from iWarden at the same time.

You think 15k damage over 6 seconds (iWarden channel time) is good? Well, for a Mesmer maybe. Besides, correct me if I’m wrong but iLeap’s Swap is 2 sec root. Why would they stay for the full 5-6 second iWarden rotation?

You know what else is funny? Most downed players can’t run away from iWarden. How’s that for lulz?

Do you really need help to kill a downed player… Besides, most classes have ways of dealing with that. Warrior can just get up, engineer knockback (or even self-rally if he dropped Elixir R which you can do nothing about), thief teleport, mesmer blink, etc., etc.

I’ll admit pre-nerf iWarden was fairly godly. But against a player expecting just that when they see a Mesmer with a sword/focus? Come on now? Really? And it’s not like you don’t telegraph this WAY before it happens. First sword/focus come out. Then Into the Void appears. Then you have 5 seconds to use the pull or it’s gone. Very easy to counter.

Tsk, it really depends who you ask. If you ask a level 80 in full exotics, killing easy mobs 1 at a time, Mesmer is fine in PvE. If you ask someone else, especially someone who played other classes (the ones that excel in PvE), the answer would be no.

Common wisdom here says that it sort of sucks until about level 40, when you get enough trait points, and then it gets better. But then, this is true of every class. Personally I give a Mesmer a 3 out of 10 in PvE. There’s nothing you cannot do. But there’s also nothing most other classes cannot do faster, more often, more reliably, to more mobs, or from further away and/or with less risk.

But that’s just me.

EasymodeX.4062:

1. First, your example is horrible because you are using long-cooldown Utility abilities. Thieves also use the cooldown mechanic for Utility abilities. Despite the terribad-ness of the example, the point is fine.

True in a way. But just substitute Death Blossom for Blurred Frenzy. If as a Thief I don’t feel like getting hit just now, I spam Death Blossom and not get hit. I’d also spread bleeds AoE like crazy on top of huge damage, but that’s neither here nor there. As a Mesmer, I can sort of do the same with Blurred Frenzy followed by Dissipation, but that’s 7 seconds assuming I have it fully traited AND already have 3 illusions up (which will also die in the process). This Death Blossom spam is the foundation of the “immortal thief” build in PvE.

2. You presume that there is 1 best solution for any given situation, and that that solution is more valuable when spammed. This is false.

Debatable at best. Let’s take a very quick example. You are immobilized with a sword, and you Blurred Frenzy is blown, and you have no illusions up. How do you survive? There’s a number of ways – is switch weapon is off CD, you can try that, or use of of several utilities, etc. For a thief, he can just cast Death Blossom. And another after that. Then use Steal and another and another. There, he just survived without blowing any cooldowns something that would have got you killed as a Mesmer, unless you had a specific weapon/utility skills up. If they were on cooldown, you’d lose. Simple spam of a bread-and-butted DPS attack he’d be using anyway.

Which reminds me, Thief running out of initiative forcing DD cripple? Come on now. It’s 4 init per cast. How much does an average thief build has? How fast it regens passively. How he can regen it actively if traited? Do the math.

CAN a thief run out of init? Sure. Would be totally borked if he couldn’t. But considering how much bang you get for your init, how much you have and how you can regen it? Realistically, it’s not that big a deal.

3. My point was that while Thieves obviously have a different playstyle because they obviously have a different resource mechanic (NO kitten?), there is no overarching advantage to either method. In terms of raw activity, proficient players of both classes should be spamming abilities non-stop. There is simply a different sequence and rhythm to the spam.

The “rhythm to the spam” was funny, in a good way. First, not many classes in this game CAN spam to begin with. For most classes, this is simply not even an option.

And sorry, but I disagree on the importance of being essentially cooldown-free. That is, being able to choose any weapon skill at any time without worry of cooldowns, provided you have enough init. Which, properly built, you’ll never be short of. There are situations where being able to perform the same Mesmer ability just three times back to back would be a huge game-changer. To the point that no other class would have a hope in hell of beating us.

Incidentally, take a look at the sPvP forum. Look at stickies. The ONLY sticky on that forum is Thief Discussion Thread. Not Mesmer, not Warrior, not Ranger. Thief. Interesting, isn’t it? As the saying goes, where there’s smoke…

But anyway, I’m still not going to call anything OP or call for nerfs or anything. Personally I try to remind myself every day that the balance in this game is still in its infancy. As far as I’m concerned, they haven’t even started working on it yet, as there’s obvious PvE and PvP discrepancies in class capabilities. This is especially shockingly glaring when you the same personal story chain with a different class. Some classes absolutely struggle, others totally breeze through them.

Plus, it’s probably too soon to talk balance anyway, as half the traits of half the classes either don’t work, bug out or cancel eachother. Until that is fixed, what good is it talking balance in the first place.

Amiron.1067:

If you have to use every weapon skill on your bar and multiple shatters to kill a single mob in that amount of time, you’re doing it wrong. My mesmer chops undead in Orr apart within 4-6 seconds at max with only using one weapon set and a single shatter (Mind Wrack).

Two words: Video Please!

Thanks for the reply Defektive. The thing is, I know the counters – the problem as always is that the counter cooldowns are always far longer than abilities you’re supposed to counter. Which is perhaps as it should be. Is a thief or warrior an issue when you have a stun breaker? Likely not. But when that stun breaker is on cooldown, it’s death most of the time. Or at least a very uphill battle as that one keystone ability will set back your health pool by as much as 70%.

This is sort of why Heatseeker was nerfed as it was weeks ago. Yes you could dodge it, for some classes more than twice, and yes you could do all kinds of things to avoid it. But a Thief could just keep on spamming until cows came home, and eventually he’d get lucky. It was a “bang for your buck” issue – where for relatively little initiative you got handily teleported in target’s direction and administered a hit. It’s a lot easier than say Death Blossom, which is actually incredibly painful to execute anywhere where you can fall off (where the smart player on the receiving end of it will stand).

Mesmer kiting is another issue I don’t really I guess “believe in”, if that’s the right expression. Mesmer is one of the most static classes in the game, if you think about it.

Staff #2 blink backwards is a very short distance displacement. And while it only has a 5 sec CD fully traited, it is incredibly predictable and doesn’t really help “kite” per se. It’s primary value is a root-breaker of sorts.

Decoy doesn’t move you at all, just puts you into stealth and creates a clone where you stand. Anyone who attacks a clone will also attack you, even though you’re in stealth you still take damage. And Decoy + roll is just as effective as roll really in terms of damage mitigation. Using up a utility slot for a clone + 3 seconds of invisibility on 40 sec CD hardly seems worth it, it’s primary value is being a stun breaker.

Blink when traited for range is nice, but it’s 30 sec CD stun-breaker, doesn’t even have stealth to it or produce a clone. Also it is very terrain-unfriendly. I’ve had many, many, MANY cases where it failed to move me at all on relatively flat terrain. And on complex terrain it’s best even not to attempt it, it’ll do more harm than good.

Coupled with how easy illusions die to AoE damage (and many of this game’s attacks are AoE), coupled with shatters not triggering “phantasm death effect” debuffs.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see Mesmers as much of a threat. Maybe I’ve just been playing as one too long and don’t fall for the obvious tricks. Now, some tricks are fun – like Decoy→Blink. But hey, that’s a 30 and 40 sec CDs and 2 utility slots blown to gain some distance basically, that a simple camera spin will nullify 3 seconds later.

Heck, in an AoE heavy battle, Mesmer is already crippled because illusions get popped by extraneous AoE effects before they can have an effect of their own or even be purposely shattered. Hardly the OP class everyone paints it as.

And the #1 spam classes, like Thief, Warrior and Ranger, you have to admit they’re very difficult to deal with unless you’re “fresh”. That is, with your breakers and cooldowns up. A warrior or a thief jumping into the thick of things when some/most/all of your cooldowns are blown will absolutely wreck you with just #1 spam. Few classes can do that.

I mean, HB is very easy to avoid. Unless you blew your rolls and your CC breaker is on CD. Then you eat it all and likely die. Considering fully traited it is a what, 8 sec CD?

But like I said, maybe it’s just me.