Guild Wars 2

I did run a similar build some time ago but with “shattered strength” in a (casual) group that could not provide might. Yes, my personal DPS is ridiculously low, but I do provide quite a bit of boons.

I am not really convinced by the benefits of the signets here. Moa has a long CD, so you get very little benefits from the distorsion and condi removal. So you have essentially one condition and 1s invuln every 24s. Not really amazing. Not to mention that distorsion means you loose cap, which is somewhat annoying.

I think bunker chrono still works with Paladin (or maybe as some suggested with more healing), I just don’t quite see how your signets help much with that.

66% alacrity was too strong for team mates in PvE. It was also to strong for self in PvP.

+1
They rarely split PvE from PvP, and here is a good place not to do it. Also, PvE illusions now have 90% damage reduction, so the gap is immense.

Not to mention, this means that “Persisting images” give an amazing 679 additional HP to your phantasm. With this, they can sustain one additional auto attack from a cleric guardian! Definitely worth it…

From what I understand, your point is that the elite specs has access to more traits (6 traitlines) and more skills (1 more weapon and skill category) and is therefore stronger.

This is not really true. First, all builds (core or elite) have access to 3 traitlines, so they have the same number of traits to choose from. A better way to say it, is that when you make your build, you choose 3 lines, and sometimes one of them happens to be an elite spec line.

The only somewhat true part is that once you have chosen your traitlines, you have more skills to pick if you slotted an elite spec. But this is greatly minimized (or should be) by synergies. The key is that the elite spec should bring a new role and playstyle to the class. So it should be (one of) the best choice(s) whenever you want to play this role, but not the best choice if you want another role.

Two examples:

• the chronomancer line is mostly a support and defensive line. If you play a shatter mesmer, the shield is not as good as the torch and the wells force you in place which you usually can’t (too squishy). The thing you get from the traitline don’t significantly increase your damage nor your defenses. Therefore, shatter mesmer is better with the core spec. On the other hand, a bunker build is unviable with core mesmer but works with chronomancer. (note that currently, many shatter mesmer still play with chronomancer just because of F5, and that is bad design)
• the dragon hunter is meant to be a selfish version of the (usually very selfless) guardian. Therefore an offensive/roamer medi-guard will find a lot of good tools in the DH line, and the longbow and some very damaging traps fit the job very well. On the other hand, a bunker guard should find better choices in the core traitlines and would not have much use for a longbow when staff and mace give so much support. Here again, this does not work that well, since the new virtues give much more survivability as well as higher support, and the traitline has good synergies with bunker role (Hunter’s Fortification, Hunter’s Determination). As a result many bunker guard use DH.

So my point is that there are many ways to design the new specs so that they have a clear role and are not always the best in all situations. It has nothing to do with having the traits and skills weaker than the core, but simply making sure they have a clear focus and are not CLEARLY STRONGER than core ones. And at the end, if some bunker guards choose DH to get some additional survivability at the expanse of some support, I am perfectly fine with it. I just want to ensure that the elite specs has a clear opportunity cost, which is not always the case currently.

Note however, that I think the new weapons and skills should be given to both core and elite specs.

DeceiverX.8361:

The chronomancer spec/trait line has very distinct and very significant/build-defining uses that have allowed the profession to be played differently and be used in different contexts. That was the intent. If power-shatter mesmer is superior to power-shatter chronomancer, but bunker builds are possible and the class brings massive group support to PvE on the chronomancer, the spec has been done properly by ensuring that more styles of play have opened up rather than power creep.

It doesn’t justify the power creep on other classes, and in particular, this mentality shows how Daredevil is the biggest design failure of all of the elite specializations since it did objectively nothing to change the way the thief plays and opened up no new builds except D/D condi which is a scumbag build, while only buffing D/P. Just because other classes are power-creeped, however, doesn’t justify that the mesmer/chrono should be; everything else just needs to be toned down, and we should be expecting a lot more nerfs in the next quarter’s patch, for that’s what the game director said they’re focusing on for the next major patch: balancing elite specs to core.

I think this is a key point. While currently many (most) elite specs are overpowered compare to core specs, a few of them do bring a different playstyle and role, and thus, with appropriate toning down, can bring the promised build diversity. But not all of them:

• chrono brings defensive and support utilities, allowing it to be useful in a team fight while mesmer is a better roamer
• reaper brings scalable defenses and cleaving shroud, and thus should also be a better team fighter while necro excels at 1v1 and range. Unfortunately, the reaper shroud is just straight out better than death shroud
• tempest brings support… but that was already pretty much the meta role of core elementalist. It does bring a somewhat different playstyle by being less rotation-based (because of overloads) but does not really bring a new role: design failure in my opinion
• druid brings support, something core ranger was not very good at. Core ranger was the least viable profession before HoT, but druid is too strong in many aspects (too much reset potential, too strong pets, …).
• Engi is what I play the least. But I don’t feel like scrapper is changing the engi role very much. It mostly brings his first melee weapon, but engi was already a bruiser.
• DD does bring stealth-less survivability, something core thief was not very good at pre-HoT… but in big part because of the destruction of acrobatics… A good move would have been to add stealth-less support, something thief severely lacks… Partly failed design
• Berserker brought mostly conditions, and is thus diversity.
• Dragonhunter is supposed to be the more selfish version of guardian. So bunker guard should be a core-guardian thing while media-guard should be better with DH. The problem is that virtues are just better, despite having cast time, so many support guard actually play DH. They not only bring higher survivability to the guardian but also higher support. So I would at least remove the ally healing from F2 and the ally block from F3. Otherwise, DH does bring diversity.
• Herald is a different role/playstyle, but is always taken as someone mentioned above, since shield and traits are just too good to pass. Rev needs a lot of balancing, since Shiro actually brings more survivability than Jalis and Glint better support than Ventari.

So overall, most elite specs sort of do their jobs, and if they were not too strong, would have opened interesting build diversity. This is why I had hope for the last quarterly update, but unfortunately, a-net went further in power creep instead of normalizing everything…

Ithilwen.1529:

Uhmmm, according to your signature, you play Mesmer. Are you honestly going to claim that Chronomancer is “stonger than core?” I’m kicking the kitten out of Chronomancers on PU condi Mesmer.

Pre-nerf chronomancer was clearly stronger than core mesmer. And alacrity was the main responsible. Any build is improved by reducing its cooldown for a very small cost. Now, alacrity is not as strong, and therefore, I am often going back to core mesmer builds. So yes, I think chronomancer is closer to what I hope, meaning a bringer of diversity. Bunker builds work fine with chrono, and shatter work fine with core mesmer.

Note however, that this situation is pretty rare, and most other classes are straight out better as elite specs. And this is actually the problem of mesmer currently. We are back to pre-HoT level when everybody else isn’t.

I can’t really speak to most of the other classes. I do better as a venom share Thief than I do as a Daredevil.

Your second point is a matter of opinion. So, it can hardly be said to discredit me unless you claim to be the ultimate authority.

Entertaining the idea for a moment; If we suppose that elites are meant to bring build diversity, then I have two questions;

What would be the point of effectively buying the game again to get the expansion? There would be very little motivation for established players with well understood classes to buy the game over again. That would mean learning a new class for no real benefit.

Why were the new classes released in such a way that they were clearly more powerful than the core classes? If the intent was to create diversity, then releasing significantly more powerful classes makes no sense.

ANET’s actions argue against the notion that the intent was to create diversity.

There is many points to discuss.

• First, I think bringing diversity is a valid reason for buying the expansion. I did not expect elite specs to be stronger (because a-net official statement was that they are horizontal progression instead of vertical, i.e. power creep) and yet I bought the expansion. Simply because the new elite specs (in particular chrono and reaper which were announced early) looked fun and interesting. And since I love playing with builds, having one more trait line, 1 more weapon and a few more utilities was something to look forward to.
• Most elite specs were too strong on release, but not during beta. Would bunker chrono have been OP during BWE1? Well I can tell you, I played bunker chrono with the exact same traits that then became meta during BWE1. At this time, there was no alacrity on wells, precognition gave unblockable and the shield did not offer a channeled block. It was fun, but not OP. And most other elite specs were seen as straight out underpowered by the community. This lead to a series of buffs. Some were QoL or justified, some extreme. Maybe a-net actually wanted overbuffed specs, but it seemed to me that they were just afraid of the criticism that would spoil their sellings more than consciously wanting power creep.
• one last point: while I don’t usually go on the “PvE and PvP should have different balance” wagon, it is clear that elite specs had raids in mind, and PvP balance suffered heavily from it. In particular the insane amount of CC (to make sure everyone could break bars) is a clear symptom of PvE-focused balancing of elite specs.

Now I don’t want to be too much on a-net’s side. I started to have faith in their balancing during the BWE seeing how they communicated and listened, and I had hope that they would simply fine tune the elite specs and bring a lot of needed QoL changes to core specs. Instead, we stopped hearing them almost as soon as the expansion came out, and I strongly suspect that the balance team has been simply removed, leaving only Karl.

Regardless of what was a-net intent, I don’t think anyone can disagree on the fact that we want build diversity, and having elite specs straight out stronger is doing just the opposite. I really think the best solution for this game is a strong nerf to most elite specs to bring them in-line with pre-HoT. On top of that, some reworks of core specs features can be useful since build diversity was far from perfect pre-HoT (but still better than currently in many cases).

Exciton.8942:

Silverkey.2078:

In PvP, I like to play interrupt crusader:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8OncfClpB2oBEgilTjqOavWm7w2cDkBwCEUA-T5ABABxXGAgnAQR7PAA

or the condi-resilient version (i.e. if I see a reaper in the enemy team)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8en0nBlphlqB2oBEgilTjqOavWkBwCEUnPRU0EA-T5ABABxXGAgnAQR7PAA

(chrono GM is up to choice, I tend to take CP).

The goal is to slow with interrupts or shield phantasm and then, shatter burst the slowed enemy for a damage on par with marauder.

This build is much less thief-sensitive than typical shatter mesmer, which is good currently.

Why crusader? I feel paladin should almost always be better. It is not like we get a lot more sustain with crusader.

We get more damage if we can ensure the sufficient crit chance. If we proc “Danger Time”, we have marauder damage.

edit: I realized I misclicked and forgot to put Danger Time, which is the core of the build. Edited the links above.

In PvP, I like to play interrupt crusader:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8OncfClpB2oBEgilTjycH2mbgMAWggqOarWA-T5ABABA8EAivMQR7PAA

or the condi-resilient version (i.e. if I see a reaper in the enemy team)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAR8en0nBlphlqB2oBEgilTjqOarWnPRU0EkBwCEUA-T5ABABxXGAgnAQR7PAA

(chrono GM is up to choice, I tend to take CP).

The goal is to slow with interrupts or shield phantasm and then, shatter burst the slowed enemy for a damage on par with marauder.

This build is much less thief-sensitive than typical shatter mesmer, which is good currently.

For raids, I think metabattle is pretty much up to date, with maybe some variations around those:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Chronotank
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Utility_DPS_

For PvP, we are in a slightly weak spot, though playable. I feel like we have decent build diversity in the sense that both the bunker, the power shatter and even possibly some condi builds are at a similar level.

Ithilwen.1529:

Discredited myself? How, pray tell? What I said was accurate if not pleasant to face.

You discredited yourself because

1. in most cases, elite specs are still stronger than core specs, some by a lot
2. elite specs should bring diversity, not stronger class. What is the point of running stronger class if everybody got stronger? None. However, by making elite specs stronger, they reduced build diversity, which is the exact opposite of what elite specs were meant to bring.

Example: before HoT, we had medi-guard, burn-guard and bunker guard all somewhat competitive. Now, we only have the medi-dragonhunter, which is subpar. Diversity: 3 -> 0

Artyport.2084:

It’s has a really boring weapon with only like 2 active skills

That’s kind of a problem actually. Even in PvP. It’s a weapon you don’t really want to AA with, but at the same time, you don’t get much else. Basically, it’s good to proc chaos armor and phase retreat can be fun in some places (especially PvP maps).

If you want a ranged damage weapon, GS is more appropriate.

Hi

First, please always mention which game mode you are interested in. Here I assume it is WvW roaming (not PvP because PvE gears, not PvE because interrupts and confusion are not so useful there), but I may very well be wrong.

Now, assuming that, here are my comments:

• as msalakka mentions, sword is weird. I can get behind the main-hand sword, since it is defensive weapon (and you have hybrid stats), but the off-hand sword not so much. If you want an offensive condi weapon, I would rather go for pistol, possibly with duelist’s discipline since you focus on interrupts anyway. Else, torch (stealth is strong in WvW) or staff.
• Again, as msalakka mentions, the mantra is good. Arcane thievery is unreliable and long CD. Null field forces you to remain in the same spot to get the cleanse. Mantra is good, especially if you can have stealth or LoS to recharge it.
• I would take master of manipulation over illusionary defense, even if you only have “blink”. With this, mirror becomes acceptable healing (not stronger than ether feast, just different).
• For your gear, you seem to end up with a all-round gear set (a bit of every stats). If you want to do so, a mix of celestial and sinister will get you a similar stat mix, but with more total stats.
• Finally, I could discuss the fact that in a condi build, you may want to consider “Illusions”, but we of course have to make a choice and your choice is perfectly acceptable.

Demandred.7930:

Not only you Mystic In the fight with the DH, I would have let you bleed a bit over there too, as long as it was safe (not like that though :p). You could probably down him if he tried to stomp, depending on his cds, but I guess he’d win that downed state fight, not sure.

Very enjoyable vid btw

Honestly for me the problem was not that he didn’t stomp. After all, this way the necro was unavailable for quite some time. It can be a great strategy if you’re anyway intending to guard the point. What was really stupid is the player not realizing he didn’t own the point and thus never stayed on it…

A few comments:

• at pro level, DH is not played anymore, because it is bad
• DH medi-trapper is a noob-stomping build.

This being said

• DH virtues are not instant (while guardians are). That is why many people complained in the forum and they buffed them to make up for it. In my opinion, DH virtues should be stronger but without ally effect, so trading ally support for stronger personal defense/offense. F1 does that already. F2 still heals allies, which I think should be removed, but a higher self-heal + mobility is fine. F3 for guardian is underwhelming, it is better for DH. But here, I think buff the guardian one (1 aegis on more than 40s CD?)
• traps are not that well-designed. They are too strong for noobs who don’t dodge them, too weak for non-noobs who dodge them. The DH sacrifices meditations (meaning healing and defensive utilities) for them. The trap trait is annoying, just spamming daze, but does not really add flavor.

So yes, this needs to be improved.

kolompi.1287:

Silverkey.2078:

There are a lot of negativity in the mesmer community…

OP left before the specialization patch. I did not play much by then, but my understanding of it is:

• bad DPS in PvE, and useful mostly for reflects (if needed)
• bad spot in PvP (eaten by thieves)
• good condi roaming in WvW, bad in big fights

Then we got specialization patch (23 june) which mostly improved on PvP making us strong, then nerfed to “viable”.

Then we got chronomancer.

• Chronomancer is a strong buff to any PvE party thanks to alacrity and quickness. Actually one chrono was pretty much mandatory because of the huge support it brought despite its own low DPS.
• Chronomancer was an upgrade on power shatter, but everyone else got more upgraded than this build, so the build died. On the other hand, chronobunker appeared, and it was too strong. So strong that all teams ran 2 (and 2 condi/power revenants, 1 scrapper or druid).
• Chronomancer made the class viable even in WvW group fights, again thanks to alacrity/quickness, AOE well damage, resistance, etc…. Note that WvW as a game mode is not in its best state currently (but a-net is working on it).

but because chronomancer was (objectively) too strong in all game modes, it was nerfed. And because a-net is not always the most subtle with nerfs, we got nerfed more than needed. So we are still good in PvE, but the situation is difficult in PvP. Power shatter is still a suicide mission, chronobunker still somewhat works, condi got very slightly buffed, but still not really amazing in PvP.

So let me get this straight. Chronomancer was too strong objectively in all game modes? It was too strong in PvP, that’s it. It was only strong with one single gimmick bunker build for PvP which no mesmer ever asked for but made perfect sense seeing how Anet gave us the wells as new skills.

And then people who have no clue how dps rotations and mechanics work (like Karl for example) come and say how it must be nerfed.

I wish people who balance this game and comment on class balance would actually be playing it or just stay put.

It was too strong in PvP, but also in PvE. It was such a high damage increase that any party “had to have one”. Now it is still useful, but not (as much) mandatory.

So, both in PvE and the PvP we are forced to play support. Yes, this is a situation I do not like. I think the answer for both is an increased to our sustained damage. But let’s be honest, we are more likely to receive such a buff if we are not already in a god-tier spot.

Well, the next patch is next tuesday. So they still have a chance to do it… And they may do since we are still decently far from the finals… but I don’t expect anything massive. Maybe a small change of “search and rescue” since they are probably scared of a comeback of the “rez meta”. A few tweaks here and there… That is the best you can expect.

There are a lot of negativity in the mesmer community…

OP left before the specialization patch. I did not play much by then, but my understanding of it is:

• bad DPS in PvE, and useful mostly for reflects (if needed)
• bad spot in PvP (eaten by thieves)
• good condi roaming in WvW, bad in big fights

Then we got specialization patch (23 june) which mostly improved on PvP making us strong, then nerfed to “viable”.

Then we got chronomancer.

• Chronomancer is a strong buff to any PvE party thanks to alacrity and quickness. Actually one chrono was pretty much mandatory because of the huge support it brought despite its own low DPS.
• Chronomancer was an upgrade on power shatter, but everyone else got more upgraded than this build, so the build died. On the other hand, chronobunker appeared, and it was too strong. So strong that all teams ran 2 (and 2 condi/power revenants, 1 scrapper or druid).
• Chronomancer made the class viable even in WvW group fights, again thanks to alacrity/quickness, AOE well damage, resistance, etc…. Note that WvW as a game mode is not in its best state currently (but a-net is working on it).

but because chronomancer was (objectively) too strong in all game modes, it was nerfed. And because a-net is not always the most subtle with nerfs, we got nerfed more than needed. So we are still good in PvE, but the situation is difficult in PvP. Power shatter is still a suicide mission, chronobunker still somewhat works, condi got very slightly buffed, but still not really amazing in PvP.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

“2/9 classes are balanced and the rest are too powerful” is a nonsensical idea.

Balance is only meaningful as a relative term. If the majority are powerful, and the minority are not, the minority are underpowered and the majority are balanced by definition.

I disagree. We don’t only have classes, we have builds. There were many viable builds before the expansion, less now because of how elite specs are mandatory.

So actually in terms of builds, we have 6-7 OP builds and dozens non-OP ones.

There is 2 reasons why I would rather have a general nerf of the elite specs instead of buff of the core specs:

• the OPness of elite specs is not only relative but absolute: they have bad mechanics which makes them unfun to play against. Constant block/evades, constant CC, constant debilitating conditions, etc…
• bringing elite specs down is the best way to ensure build diversity.

That does not mean that some things can’t be buffed. We did not have perfect build diversity before HoT, some traits/skills are obviously UP. But in overall class balance, I actually think everything should be rebalanced to pre-HoT level. I want a meta where the old (unbuffed) bunker guard and shatter mesmer are good, that is my reference point.

Chill is unbalance for necros because it’s a all-or-nothing. Since BWE1 people in the necro forum have suggested to rework the mechanics, with for example:

• Deathly chill: inflict torment whenever you chill a foe

This is perfectly thematic (chill is a soft CC, torment punished you from moving which is kind of the same), it stacks (so 2 necro won’t overwrite each other’s chill) and you need to stack a few chills before you reach 700 damage ticks. On the other hand, you can have torment bursts (RS 4 in ice field).

Right now, chill does so much damage that you should dodge every skill which chills… unrealistic. With this change, you can be chilled a few times without killing you, but you have to dodge chill-bursts.

And this is actually a buff to PvE condi reaper.

Hi

First, I think what one would call “clone builds” would be a build where you set up clones and let them do the damage (it works only with staff clones since they do conditions). So better using the name “shatter build” when you refer to a build where clones are only used for shatters.

Otherwise, the answer depends on what you are playing:

• in open-world/casual PvE, just do what you prefer. Shatter builds are more active, which I like, but you can’t really call it a “summons” build anymore.
• in organized PvE (dungeons/fractals/raids) then the most efficient is a phantasm build where you let the phantasms do damage and only use shatter (F1 mostly) to finish off enemies as it does decent burst damage. If you have unlocked chronomancer (which you definitely should) you can then buff your party by using alacrity and quickness. There are guides explaining how to do that properly. Note that chronomancer also brings you “chronophantasma”: when you shatter a phantasm for the first time, it is resummoned. With that, you can add a bit of shatter in your otherwise mostly phantasm playstyle.
• In PvP, phantasm builds are not so great, mostly because phantasms die too fast and rarely get to attack twice. So shatter is by far the most common then.

Well I don’t want to be mean, but this is barely a variant of the frostfire meta build. And one of the main differences is that you don’t use the signet trait which is a weird decision, especially since you do have signets. then you use off-hand dagger instead of warhorn, and the shout heal instead of signet, which is are both acceptable decisions.

Sorel.4870:

Nerf every other elite specs but chrono and tempest.

There. Fixed.

+1

Deified.7520:

Silverthorn.8576:

ok you don’t know what you are talking about, thx.

Yes, they not the most mobile in the game. However, they did get mobility. More then I think they need in my opinion. I remember they removed vanilla DS teleport because it was too much mobility. A evading leap is practically the same thing.

I think they should get rid of the evading factor, but add in stability. Like you use it and you get 2 stacks of stability.

The skill does not evade…. it only blinds and I believe destroys projectiles (at least it was supposed to). So yes… you don’t know what you are talking about.

daggerhands.9634:

Silverkey.2078:

daggerhands.9634:

Lol learn to play all classes you named are easely counterable

Yes, you can counter OP classes by using other OP classes.

The reason people complain is because there has been a serious power creep with HoT. Remember the “OP” D/D elementalist pre-HoT? How could this become a weak spec post-HoT (even before celestial removal)???

I have it for you:

• Tempest is probably fine now (which means dead in the OP meta)
• chrono is also getting closer to balance, but continuum shift is still too strong
• reaper has OP condi damage
• daredevil has OP damage
• Druid has OP pet burst and too much (long) CC
• Scrapper has over-OP sustain
• Berserker is not too OP
• DH has too much CC
• Rev has still a bit too much sustain

so here we are: 6 out of 9 are OP. What this also means is that instead of bringing additional diversity in PvP, elite specs have just removed what was before and actually reduced diversity.

And now people want to buff the core specs to be able to reach the OP level of the elite specs… Yes, you could balance things like this, but this is a terrible idea. Power creep has made the game much less fun. You can now spend a huge amount of time stun locked or get all conditions in the game on you in less than 2s. The only proper fix is a massive nerf to most elite specs. Some people won’t be happy at first, but this will make the game much healthier.

Tempest got arguably nerfed slightly too hard(meh)
Chrono you dont even see in pvp anymore(meh)
Reaper get counterered hard by condi cleanses (learn to focus target and cleanse)
You are just mad at daredevils ganking you all day(btw a good player should never lose vs a thief in a 1v1 due to the fact they have allmost no survivability)
Druid only has a few cc’s and has to sacrifice dmg to get them longer and can be beaten 2v1 easely(closest we have to a tank atm so that fits and learn to focus his pet and either learn his tells or get some stab)
Same for scrapper though most of his survivability comes from core lines
Berserker meh they are basicly medi guards without the teleport but with a cc chain (stunbreak and dodge their dmg rotation then /laugh as they run(if they are smart) or watch them die fairly quick to any decent player)
DH they are pretty easy to beat just range them and use stab+ block to trigger their traps to then dodge out of them
And revs honestly unless they are +1 ing are quite a joke

So basicly learn how to do basic stuff like condi clear, dodge/ use stab on big tells its a learn to play issue not a specialisations are OP/p2w issue

So should I ask pro leagues players to l2p because they don’t play core specs anymore? They play the most efficient, and weirdly enough, you rarely see non-elite specs.

The expansion patch did not nerf anything. I mostly brought new specs. If those new specs were balanced, you would have seen a healthy mix of old and new. Sure, maybe a core spec gets a new counter, so it fades a bit. But another core build counters a new one, so it appears while it was not overly popular before. Instead what we saw is that very early on, the core specs disappeared. Sure, you could play some and still outplay a player with an elite spec, but overall, an equal skill team would have a significantly higher chance of winning with the new specs.

Don’t get me wrong, I have my OP elite spec and I’m doing very fine in PvP. No l2p issue here. But that does not mean I can’t see that there have been a strong power creep, and if you can’t see it, maybe you are the one who should learn to PvP…

Well don’t hold your breath:

• there probably won’t be any more patch soon. The devs will at least wait for pro leagues to see how the meta takes shape.
• Bunker chrono may actually still be a thing. If the devs see that many teams still bring the build, they will assume mesmer is fine.

Personal opinion here: please don’t buff mesmer “yet” and add to the power creep. The priority is nerfing everyone to pre-HoT level. Pre-HoT was relatively well balanced, with almost all classes viable in PvP. Then, once this is done, mesmer can be adjusted if necessary. In particular, a buff to our sustain damage (which may require a nerf to burst damage, but we need to see how things have changed by then) will be most beneficial for build diversity and for PvE.

daggerhands.9634:

Tim.6450:

Aggreed. “DH traps & true shot op, Druids bristleback op, thiefs op , necro corrupts & chill op, Scrapper damage & sustain op, … . " Half the classes are OP -_-.

Lol learn to play all classes you named are easely counterable

Yes, you can counter OP classes by using other OP classes.

The reason people complain is because there has been a serious power creep with HoT. Remember the “OP” D/D elementalist pre-HoT? How could this become a weak spec post-HoT (even before celestial removal)???

I have it for you:

• Tempest is probably fine now (which means dead in the OP meta)
• chrono is also getting closer to balance, but continuum shift is still too strong
• reaper has OP condi damage
• daredevil has OP damage
• Druid has OP pet burst and too much (long) CC
• Scrapper has over-OP sustain
• Berserker is not too OP
• DH has too much CC
• Rev has still a bit too much sustain

so here we are: 6 out of 9 are OP. What this also means is that instead of bringing additional diversity in PvP, elite specs have just removed what was before and actually reduced diversity.

And now people want to buff the core specs to be able to reach the OP level of the elite specs… Yes, you could balance things like this, but this is a terrible idea. Power creep has made the game much less fun. You can now spend a huge amount of time stun locked or get all conditions in the game on you in less than 2s. The only proper fix is a massive nerf to most elite specs. Some people won’t be happy at first, but this will make the game much healthier.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

umm I’m wondering where Robert Gee is :P

I think there is only Karl left, hence the long time between small updates.

Salamander.2504:

+1. Bunker guard back to viability would help everything.

Edit: To clarify: my opinion is that if ANet balances the elite specs (traits, skills, etc) around the core bunker guard, balance would be wonderful. And we wouldn’t shift back into the boring bunker meta, because as the OP said, bunker guard is one of the only bunker specs that isn’t cheesy to fight due to how altruistic healing works. Plus, the introduction of bunker guard back to viability could allow for some interesting and unforeseen new builds (in other classes) to pop up.

+1 on this one. The key is not to change guardian, but to adjust everyone around this well-balanced core class.

I saw that a few days ago and was surprised: the forums are full of people explaining how mesmer is in a bad spot, especially shatter mesmer. It was already last season. And yet, it looks like she is discovering this fact and that the team is unaware of that…

Being optimistic, I will assume that she was unaware (because she cannot browse all the forum), but the balance team is… maybe…

A few suggestions/discussions here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/No-support-specs/first

Unblockable skills should be about… skill. You should see your enemy blocking and react by using your unblockable skills, in particular unblockable CC to counter the block. You should not have your main offensive skills straight unblockables because then you don’t need to think anymore. That is why I dislike “Test of Faith” being unblockable…

On the other hand, chronomancer used to have “well of precognition” which gave unblock ability to everyone in the area (if I remember well). That is better design, because you can’t spam it, you use it while your enemy is blocking and destroy him. But the skill changed to become more defensive, and then got scrapped. I hope they will come back to the original design, since then it at least had a purpose.

Well it’s not as bad as you seem to think.

What has changed mostly compared to before is

• more damage in the meta
• more boon corruption from necro
• less defensive stats in the amulets, and in particular no vitality+toughness+healing power.

But that does not mean it cannot work anymore. Actually, in my experience in soloq, having at least one support character is still the best way to win fights, and since everybody almost is playing full offensive, playing the support yourself helps you win.

So here is why it still works:

• boon support is a becoming dangerous with reapers, but if there are no reapers, it works as well as before. You should make sure you don’t over focus on boons.
• condi cleanse is still quite needed, as it seems the meta will contain a even mix of power and condi
• heal support has become more difficult with the amulet change. But some classes can go around that because they have naturally high HP (necro/warrior) or high toughness (warrior, guardian) and/or they can gain the missing stats from traits (see warrior and guardian below). As a parenthesis, bunker guard used to work with clerics which still exists. Yes, they are now demolished by conditions and CC, but it’s worth mentioning that there are still defensive amulets out there.
• don’t forget that amulets with less defensive stats have more offensive stats instead. So using the new Paladin, Mender etc… means you have increased damage compare to the old soldier/celestial/cleric. So even if your survivability took a hit compared to pre-patch, your worth has increased as a damage dealer.

So here are a few support spec that work quite well (not necessarily meta, but they worked for me or for others)

• shout crusader reaper (BM, SR, Reaper): marauder-type damage with celestial-type healing on top and a few AOE condi cleanse.
• paladin chronbunker (chaos, insp, chrono): a bit of alacrity, a bit of boons, a bit of condi cleanse, a bit of healing and a lot of control and decent burst damage makes it a well rounded support
• mender shout warrior ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/The-New-Shout-Warrior-Build/first ) : a good use of “Rousing Resilience” to cover the missing toughness from the amulet. Good sustain, decent healing and control
• mender guardian? this one I haven’t tried, but it may work in the same way as the warrior by using toughness from traits (buffed shield trait and “retributive armor”). Or on the opposite, maybe paladin using healing power from the buffed “Invigorated Bulwark” can work. Both are worth trying. However, since the usual shout build produces a lot of boons, it will still be a difficult spec against reaper. Maybe a non-shout build will be better?

Ross Biddle.2367:

My suspicion is that the best role Mesmer can bring to the coming meta (if anything at all) will be a home point defender. Keeping in mind that whatever this build looks like will need to

• run portal
• be able to ward off a thief
• offer something when rotating to mid (be it condis, utility, etc) before porting back to defend home.

Whatever this build is, it’ll only function in a greater team comp.

So basically you’re saying mesmer will be there for its portal?

It’s been a week now since the patch. So what do you feel is our best build right now, and how viable is it in the current meta?

I have been trying a few things myself, among others:

• chrono shatter (dom-duel-chrono)
• core shatter (dom-duel-X)
• mistrust (duel-ill-chrono)
• crusader interrupt (dom-chaos-chrono)
• chronobunker (chaos-insp-chrono)

and I feel like chronobunker is still our best. Chrono and core shatter feel like subpar version of thieves. Mistrust build could do very good damage, but were too glassy and simply outclassed by condi reaper. Crusader interrupt dies too easily to reaper to be the “bruiser” I intended. Only chronobunker seems to hold its grounds.

Note that my analysis is very likely biased because of the very bad unranked team compositions. I often played alongside 4 DPS/roamers, usually at least 1 or 2 thieves, so playing a node-holder and team fight support spec was the best way to “rebalance” the comp. At the end, even in a more thief-rich and DPS-centric meta, the team that can win team fights has an edge.

OP may just be due to playing unranked. Solo queuing in unranked after having played a full season of ranked is really frustrating. You end up paired with 4 DPS players, often at least 2 of them being thieves and people just fight off points, never defend or watch over their caps, go for beast leaving you outnumbered on the points, etc… So it does appear less strategical.

But otherwise, the fact that you can kill enemies in a shorter amount of time reinforces the importance of rotating, not the other way around like OP suggests.

Well dodging interrupts the channel, and if you don’t complete the channel, you don’t have the phantasm. As far as I know, it has always been like this as a continuous block indeed.

You simply need to unlock it with hero points (in the “training” panel). It does cost a lot of hero points though.

Then once you have unlocked at least the first item (“shield mastery” I think) you can start using it by taking the chronomancer line in the “build” panel. The chronomancer trait line has to be the third one.

MailMail.6534:

Silverkey.2078:

Please stop saying self-alacrity should remain 66%… The situation was:

• shared alacrity was OP in PvE
• self-alacrity was OP in PvP for bunker specs

Actually, many people in PvP even suggested to reduce the effectiveness of alacrity on self while keeping the shared alacrity as it was, because self alacrity was the only really OP part.

Yes, alacrity was strong on a bunker spec. You know what’s still decently strong even in the chaos that is unranked? Bunker Mesmer. You know why it’s only decently strong now? Because of the changes to quickness/slow, our boon up-time and the over-buffing of almost every other class. The Alacrity nerf really only negatively impacts all other Chrono specs from my experience… What a shame.

There were a myriad of ways to curtail the effectiveness of bunker Mesmer. One way was shaving the numbers on traits like AWTEW, Flow of Time and Echo of Memory. I would have even liked a shaving of 16%. This is what they did before which impressed me as it was indicative of careful balancing. They chose to demolish the entire trait line instead.

And even NOW it makes no sense why they didn’t compensate for the alacrity nerf by reducing the CDs of some of our longer utilities and skills like Wells of Recall, Eternity and Precognition (lol). Even Well of Action could be buffed a bit since the neutering of quickness/slow.

So no, I won’t stop saying that one solution is to split the effectiveness based on self and group, because that’s a simple and straightforward way of correcting a few issues among many…

Yes, there are many ways to fix chrono bunker without alacrity nerf.

The problem is that all of us have a different idea of “good balance”. For me, one element of “perfect balance” is that no traitline feels like a must almost regardless of the build. Alacrity is a boost to any build and in its previous state was so strong that with minimal investment, the chrono line was a big improvement. I think that alacrity should be something you build for in order to take fully advantage of it. This way, it can be strong in some builds (chronobunker/PvE) but not super effective in some others (power/condi shatter) and thus other traits or trait lines should be considered. And this is exactly where we stand now, and that makes me happy.

So instead of buffing alacrity and nerfing chronobunker, what about letting alacrity where it currently is and boosting our sustained damage? This way PvE and power shatter become more competitive, and this would be honestly a very healthy change for mesmers. This would increase build diversity, in particular by allowing bruiser builds.

I perfectly agree and already suggested it in the past… But instead they made iDisenchanter attack every 2s…

Chip Skylark.2367:

Daishi.6027:

Not sure if joke or troll?… But if not, you could just doge into the illusions regardless of Moa and mitigate most if not all of the damage? If you are constantly getting surrounded by illusions where you cannot, you are bad at positioning and need to work on that :/

For shatters to be effective you need to hit with multiple shatters, to achieve max damage (which I want to point out is still less than what a thief can pull off in the same duration with better escape) that is 6 cool downs or 4 cooldowns and 2 doges and this is presuming they didn’t die in Cleave/AoE <- on top of this most weapon sets only have one clone generator and one phantasm.

Easy damage to mitigate, long set up, kite and kill able sustain.

Also since energy sigil nerfs that means no more free clones.

For chrono specifically with the changes to alacrity they cannot do their long combo as frequent, and chrono line gives up a rather large chunk of defense or offense compared to the 5 core lines for the exchange of a bit more efficientcy and frequency. (Which really if it was not for the added mobility and CS the line wouldn’t be worth it)

If you see CS rift dropped just kite and wait it out, not like they can cap the point anyways, it’s easy to play around.

If you run at it and let him pop all his C/Ds or don’t predict key cool downs coming after stealth for those few seconds, well then it’s your own fault.

This was all relevant 1v1 but as you may know the game is not balanced around 1v1, so if you get blind sided and die to a +1 don’t get so salty?

Also if a Mesmer moas me regardless of what I am playing at the time (except Moa is actually a DPS buff as a Mesmer lol) I can still kill him. <-mesmers predictably use it as an “oh kitten button” or as an opener to gain momentum (which really shouldn’t be done since it’s not good reactive play imo). Both ways are easy to play around.

Hope I fed you enough have a nice day.

Funny how your first point directly contradicts your last comment.

If (and this is a big IF) it is possible to survive 1v1 while in Moa form, it still means that you are 100% a free kill in a team fight vs a coordinated team.

Once per minute, a Mesmer can turn the tide of a team fight with just one skill. How is that balanced? Especially when you add portal and insane burst into the equation.

And to all the “Moa survivors”, you must have been facing some pretty horrible players if they weren’t able to finish you. I’m sorry but this is a fact.

Double Moa at the start of the game means that your team can essentially turn a 4v4 into a 4v2. This should not be a thing.

You guys can call me a troll all you want, but this thread is getting attention so enjoy your broken class while you can.

As I said, just play the class and you will see…

Yes Moa is useful. That is why people use it. But no, a moa is not a free kill. And as long as you don’t play against organized team, you will never die to a moa.

Moa is mostly good to shut down bunkers. Bunker needs their active defense (heal, blocks, evades and so on) to survive, so turning a bunker to a moa makes the killing easier. But if you are not a bunker, chances are you can survive more easily as a moa than not a moa.

And in any case, shatter mesmer is in an awful state right now, so even with “OP” skills like moa or portal, it is not really worth bringing to a team.

Mesmer, stomping noobs since 2012

If this whole thread was a joke, I would not laugh… But it’s not, so that actually makes me laugh…

• I very rarely die as a moa. I can’t remember the last time I actually died… You should consider having a look at the moa skills and you will realize that they are actually good…
• shatter burst is fairly high, but avoidable. And after this burst, the mesmer really does not have much to finish you (lowest sustained damage of all classes). Just for comparison, a thief burst from stealth leaves no counterplay (it is a single damaging hit while the shatter burst is a combo so you can avoid the end of it) and then they can heartseeker you to death, bound-dodge to death or even AA to death.
• a typical shatter mesmer has nearly 0 defenses outside of stealth and in particular nearly 0 condi cleanse.

All of this results in shatter mesmer being absolutely unviable in the current meta. For the sake of balance, it’s not a nerf shatter mesmer needs but a serious buff.

People should not be allowed to call for nerfs until they try the build themselves and realize that they spend their time waiting for respawn.

Not to mention that I’m pretty sure most pro league players would have preferred the previous meta fixed earlier, even if it meant rerolling.

Necro is not supposed to buff allies but to debuff enemies. That is why I still don’t understand why a-net did not implement a very simple thing: a unique debuff which increases the damage received by the enemies. It would work the very same way (and be as efficient) as some of the damage buff other classes give to allies, but is a debuff so fits the necro theme.

For example:

• blood is power: 25s CD: consume 20% LF and inflict a debuff called “X” on nearby enemies for 10s
• X: increase by 10% damage and condition damage received

problem solved.

Let us be constructive:
I would love for necro to loose some HP if we finally could get some sustain and scalable defenses instead. Shouts were a great step forward in the scalable defense side, but we still have very few ways to deal with focus fire.

This is a case where pro league is against us. The reason they don’t want balance changes more frequently is that they don’t want to change the meta without letting time to pro teams to adapt.

But I think they should have first balance properly HoT before starting pro leagues. And I perfectly agree that small regular patches is a better way to do that.

The last patch is a typical example of “overcorrecting”. For example they wanted to nerf bunker chrono so they:

• removed quickness rez
• removed defensive amulets
• reduced alacrity effectiveness
• destroyed well of precognition
• removed durability rune
• nerfed energy sigils
• nerfed chaotic dampening
• nerfed chaos armor
• nerfed resistance on F5 and glamour

This is obviously overkill. And many changes are like this. If they had more regular updates, they would have been able to do small shaves and slowly adjust the build until it is balanced and healthy for the game.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Silverkey.2078:

Please stop saying self-alacrity should remain 66%…

• self-alacrity was OP in PvP for bunker specs

Since bunker specs are pretty effectively dead with or without original alacrity, what’s your beef with saying it should remain 66%?
You’re taking it out of context again, as though the other nerfs didn’t happen.
You’ve been doing that a lot over this.

And you have been blaming me for this all over :p

As I said in other places, I think alacrity is good. I think the nerf to resistance was absurd, the nerf to chaos armor unnecessary, and the “rework to scepter” laughable. So I am not overall happy with the balance patch, but that part I do agree with.

And as I also said a few times, the main thing which puts chrono in a bad position is the lack of nerf to other specs.

I just think that alacrity in its previous form was unhealthy

• for the game in general
• for mesmers, as if it had remained, we would have ended up being balanced around it, making it mandatory in everything the mesmer does.

Of course, the big flaw in my reasoning is that I assume a-net will end up doing the right thing…. I still have this weird (naive) hope a-net will end up bringing other elite specs in-line and fix some of our problems (like our lack of good condi cleanse outside of inspiration, our sustained damage, and many others).

Please stop saying self-alacrity should remain 66%… The situation was:

• shared alacrity was OP in PvE
• self-alacrity was OP in PvP for bunker specs

Actually, many people in PvP even suggested to reduce the effectiveness of alacrity on self while keeping the shared alacrity as it was, because self alacrity was the only really OP part.

I don’t get why many people think alacrity is not working anymore. Alacrity is just fine. People thought alacrity was the core of the chronomancer line: it is not. It is just 3 traits. You can build for it, but you don’t need to. It’s like the confusion on shatter in “Illusion”, you can make a condi shatter build with it and other traits, but even power shatter use to take the line, even if confusion does pitiful damage in power build.

So yes, a shatter build does not benefit much from alacrity (though a full shatter still gives 1s cooldown reduction on all skills which is always nice to have), but a build with wells and shield can pump a lot of alacrity and then, can get 25% cooldown reduction on the whole party (PvE mostly, but bunker chrono does provide a decent amount too), which is quite good for the investment.

I know this is a controversial opinion, but I think the alacrity nerf was very positive (though I think some other nerfs like resistance or precognition were bad). Now this allow more build diversity:

• chronomancer outshines less core-mesmer builds
• alacrity traits outshine less non-alacrity traits

And for the overall balance:

• PvE mesmer is still a thing
• PvP shatter mesmer with or without chronomancer is somewhat on par with chronobunker in terms of viability
• PvP mesmer is pretty much crushed by some other elite specs, but this is mostly because the other elite specs are OP.

A few easy things which would help mesmer now:

• move the movement speed buff to dueling or domination instead of chrono
• buff the sustained damage of mesmer: stronger AA or (not easy anymore) full redesign of the phantasm concept
• reduce power creep of other specs