Guild Wars 2

Muchacho.2390:

The changes look really good in my opinion apart from soul eater. I dont like the fact that now only gravedigger steals life. I think sustain wise this makes the trait actually worse then before.

I do not know for sure until we try, but it does not sound that bad: when you start the fight, people have full health, you can’t spam gravedigger too much. But when your own life becomes low, you probably have someone else who is also low, so gravedigger spam starts. In a team fight, you may spend a lot of time spamming gravedigger because you need only 1 enemy below 50% for the recharge to activate.

So by putting it only on gravedigger but upping its value a lot, it MAY work actually better.

I already thought of it, and I think it makes perfect sense (a necromancer buffs his allies by debuffing the enemy)

Chokolata.1870:

I have not pre-purchased HoT. I am not sure that I will even buy it. It all depends on whether Druid is a good spec or not and whether they fix Ranger core issues.

So far I feel that all of the elites other then DH and Reaper are crap design. There is no trade off, they are just upgrades to the core classes.

I strongly disagree. From your examples, it seems you only focus on the class mechanics (DH and reaper CHANGE their class mechanics while the others ADD to the class mechanics). But that is a wrong way of looking at it: the added new class mechanics is a trait. Most traits ADD something. But the tradeoff is that you could take another trait instead. All elites feel like while they bring something interesting, giving up on one core specialization is difficult because usually the core specializations interact well together.

I really expected a big balance change… until I saw the very good elite spec changes on monday. I personally feel that they did a much better job with balance this time than last time. I expect a lot of work has been put to get those results, and it is the only team responsible for balance so I didn’t expect them to ALSO balance the core classes.

And for this reason, I am actually not salty about it. On the contrary, those balance changes prove to me that the team is very competent at balancing. I believe this team has been in charge for only a few months (to work on elite specializations and the core specialization patch). If they remain after HoT (which I really really really hope) then I see myself dreaming of a proper balance coming for the first time since the beginning of the game.

A dreaming tyrian…

Well not everyone seem happy about the change because of phantasm lack of survivability against AOE and cleave. Transforming bounce phantasms to PBAOE means they all become “melee” and thus suffer more heavily from enemy damage.

I am personally all for that because phantasms meant to be team support should not rely on a random projectile which will never affect the whole party even in the best case scenario. But I also agree that phantasm survivability should be looked at.

I personally don’t think buffing phantasm’s HP is going to make them OP in any game mode. To be honest, phantasms are currently UP in EVERY game mode. But if devs are afraid of that, then keep the damage phantasms as they are but at least buff the utility phantasms (iDefender, iDisenchanter and maybe iCapt and iMage) to make them used at all (is anyone currently relying on a utility phantasm?). And also iDefender should NOT take half the damage, but simply reduces by half the damage (currently, this phantasms survivability scales inversely proportional to number of enemies AND number of allies which is plain awful).

Should we make a youtube playlist? I saw so far:

• Guapo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcafCWKv1HU
• Ross Biddle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySX3QzaIg1c
• Messiah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSAvmf7MS50
• mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_y4emAQVAY

• A Gontsharov (what is his/her forum name?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiY3acPid54

• Decimus maybe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2DHLgoJiwc

anduriell.6280:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Forgetting Executioner’s Scythe? We have a buttload of Chill in Reaper’s Shroud thanks to that ice field and finishers. It’s very, very easy as a Reaper to have high Chill uptime.

Executioner’s Scythe only apply 1 second of chill that last the same as the Stun it applies. I think the chill there is just to give a nice touch to the skill more than actual utility.

In my tests i couldn’t get any uptime with chilled in gameplay, no theorycrafting here. The base of our chill uptime is the Chilling Scythe but that AA chain is so slow that your target is out of reach most of the times. I think i could land it like 10 times in pvE none in WvW.

RS 5 + 4 creates a ton of chill (I think that is why there is a 5-stack limit, else you would chill AOE everyone for 1 min in 2 skills). One this combo is setup, applying future chill is easier. And let’s be honest, reaper is efficient enough to burst people down quite fast so your chill does not need to last that long.

I personally played conditions last BWE, so I tried instead staff 3 + RS 4 for insane poison stacking, and yet, I still managed to chill the enemy for a decent amount of time (I did use focus to setup the burst with chill + vuln).

nekretaal.6485:

Spite is going to be a fairly mandatory line for reapers.

You get a ton of might on RS auto and on attacks on below 50% enemies and this might is also your sustain because anet created Blighter’s boon instead of letting reapers heal in shroud.

Spite is the only line with any kind of real boon output.

If you want curses, drop soul reaping.

But without SR, no Dhuumfire, while it finally performs well on reaper! Honestly as a condi reaper, we are still held back by our awful condi weapons. The only reason it works better than condi necro is reaper’s shroud!

Chilling force will probably output a decent quantity of might if you go in a team fight, but if you go dueling, spite is irreplaceable.

Wow… everything looks just… perfect.
The shield now feels more like a melee-defensive weapon (which is exactly what I was hoping for). The well of eternity condition cleanse is also exactly what I wanted. I am partly sad for iRev, but it seems others were happy with it.

knockdown, float and then pull

Is that the effect on each successive pulse (with no CC at the end)? I’m impatient to see how bad-kitten that looks :O

By looking at all professions, I would say you have all done an amazing job and our feedbacks seem perfectly answered

They don’t compete, one is a ring, one an accessory.

Ok, video posted a bit earlier than first planed. As expected, I did have trouble with FPS and image quality, so I apologize for that.

Condi mesmer is perfectly viable in PvP. I think it is not desired as much in high tier because it does not fit the role assigned to mesmer as well (bursting people down) because the burst is a tad slower. But very efficient nonetheless.
As for PU: shatter mesmer used to work fine before PU was accessible in their build, it still does even better. PU just makes thing easier (too easy?)

Will send mine tomorrow.

One of the few classes in the game hostage of their class mechanics (like rangers, but also in a different way necromancers). You have to reduce damage to take into account for phantasms in PvE, but you also have to take into account shatters in PvP. But illusions die and take forever to resummon. So you’ve just got a reduced damage without compensation…

A-net: with the druid, we added a major improvement to the pet mechanics
ranger community: HYPE! HYPE! HYPE!
A-net: you now have even more available pets thanks to the new creatures discovered in the Maguuma jungle
ranger community: ….

I personally love courtyard, but I think the problems are:

• it is a different game mode than conquest, and as such needs different builds. For example, the “roamer” builds of conquest do not work nearly as well in courtyard.
• it favors heavily the organized teams (more than conquest i think)
• as a result of both previous factors, this map can create matches which are VERY unbalanced.

Saying that nobody wants courtyard is very exaggerated, but it is a slightly different target group. Now that the devs introduced a checkbox for conquest or stronghold, they may as well add one for “team death match”. I really believe that the reason which pushed separating conquest from stronghold hold true for courtyard too!

Muchacho.2390:

Silverkey.2078:

The number on the tooltip is already
Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

but computed with a specific armor value which I don’t remember.

According to the wiki it is dependend on your level. For level 80 characters it is 2600 armor.

See: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage under tooltip damage

This value works well in PvE, but in PvP, in my experience, it does not quite work. Or maybe they just do not use the weapon strength we think…

Necromonger.4970:

It’s amusing reading “google how statistics work” posts.
A fair system is where the majority wins or it’s completely random(with an option to ban a few maps). Or how about they start doing good maps with less gimmicks.

A fair system is one where each person’s voice is heard. There are 10 people voting on the map, so there is 10% chance that the map I voted for will be selected. I can’t see how anyone could think this is unfair. You don’t always get the map you voted for? Well if you did, the system would be quite unfair don’t you think?

Now I agree, if there were no maps like skyhammer and spirit watch with mechanics so strong they destroy the game play, this would not be a problem…

Zenith.7301:

Devs don’t care. They nerfed ranger spirits into oblivion and they’re never used again in PvP, didn’t care about the overnerf.

They nerfed dhuumfire and it’s not going to be used until reaper in most builds.

They nerfed ranger shortbow shortly into release and it hasn’t seen the light of day.

I know Nemesis is not really the most popular character in gw2, but I do wonder sometimes if there is no truth when he suggests that devs are just shaking the PvP balance from time to time, voluntarily creating OP builds and then nerfing them into oblivion to keep some variety in PvP and keep people interested in a game mode that hasn’t seen much changes for 3 years.

I personally think that a well-balanced game with high build diversity would be much better, but I can understand that changing the meta every now and then can be a good (and cheap) way to keep the interest of players…

Zenith.7301:

The nerf to Harmonious Mantras was detestable and unnecessary for PvE mesmers, but as usual we get screwed for PvP whine because the developers only care for the PvP aspect of the game.

To be fair, it was a stupid nerf from a PvP point of view too… The only reason mantras were OP in PvP was confounding suggestion. But confounding suggestion is still there and mantras are dead. So they did reduce the powers of mantras but also

• reduced build diversity
• nerfed PvE mesmers

Just a note: the link to metabattle was a PvP link, while it looks like you commented it as if it was a link to the PvE build.

The number on the tooltip is already
Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

but computed with a specific armor value which I don’t remember.

Also just on a theme PoV, we don’t need 2 buffs doing the same thing.
A damage rotation (when it is not 1111111) can be buffed by quickness to make each attack faster, but if your burst skill is still on cooldown, you won’t get the ideal 50% damage increase. For example: ranger now uses longbow in its rotation and does 2-5-2 for high burst DPS before the weapon swap is off-CD, add quickness to that and you barely increase the DPS. Add quickness + alacrity and you do. Both synergise well together.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Silverkey.2078:

First: we are not supposed to beat a cleric guard. Cleric guard is amazing at direct support, but does not do anything to enemies. A cleric mesmer can do very high support (very close to cleric guardian) but still have some decent enemy debuff (blinds, boon removal, interrupts…).

Second, by having more than one mantra, you can get additional outgoing healing. In particular, mantra of pain can be spammed ridiculously easily.

I am currently playing a settler interrupt mesmer. The idea is to support through

• mantra healing + condition cleanse
• boonshare + stability on mantra for stomp/revive
• revive (rune of mercy)
• interrupts to debuff the enemy + gain might (to share)

And on average in optimal conditions (courtyard) I have as much outgoing healing and boons than my bunker guardian. But on top, I have additional debuff, interrupts etc… The only thing which makes mesmer a bit less optimal than guardian in direct support is that the healing is not necessarily available on demand. I cannot keep my mantras uncharged to give the healing when needed.

Gonna point out that in the pictures you link you don’t get top healing to others, only top healing to self, which is typical of mesmer. You also get top boons applied to self, which is also typical of mesmer. However your comment on normal healing output versus the proposed 20% makes me think it would be unwise to have it as a percentage increase as it would boost your output over guard and ele.

If I remember well I actually also got the healing to others and boon to others. When I play bunker guard or bunker mesmer, I usually get the whole thing

• most boons to self and allies
• most healing to self and allies
• most conditions removed from self and allies
• top revive players

mostly because people rarely play support in PUGs. My point was mostly to show that I get about the same output (as far as those stats show) with bunker guard and bunker mesmer. The main difference are:

• bunker guard is way easier
• surviving is more difficult as a mesmer with this build, because the recharging of the mantra is a sensitive time
• the support takes more time from me (most guardian dedicated-support is instant except empower, as a mesmer I spend half of my time loading the mantras :p ). This is compensated by somewhat higher damage output from conditions
• the debuffs capabilities is much higher (interrupts with chaotic interruption are very powerful in a support role)

There is already a thread asking basically this question.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/What-is-our-role-in-new-raids/first

My personal answer is: yes! I think necro has a place there. Simply because

• boon removal can be a thing and if we need “burst” removal (10 boons in one shot) instead of steady removal (1 boon every 3s), necro are the best there
• this new content may have a better ratio of mob/boss, and necro’s debuff can be very useful for non-defiant enemies
• they may rebalance the defiant/breakbar to give some space to debuffs
• if they force to split the party into individual members, necro’s self buffing will shine
• necro’s DPS while tanking is probably the highest of all classes
• Reaper pure DPS is reasonably good

style.6173:

Number 1 pet peeve: People who go beast at the beginning of Forest causing their team to lose mid.

Fortunately, the enemy team is doing the same and while your team was fighting the beast you went and capped mid.

The best way to kill a D/D ele as a shatter mesmer (and probably the only way if you 1v1) is to moafy them just before the burst to deny them their healing.

Windwalker.7421:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Absolutely, unequivocally untrue. I ran condi shatter in BWE1 with and without CP, and I can say that it was great with both.

Ahh OK, so because you played it and feel it was “great” then I guess that must be so! I guess my own experience was wrong then! /getoveryourself

Sorry, but Condie Shatter couldn’t have been “great” as even with IR+CP and DE it wasn’t and isn’t “great”, and certainly not since the MtD nerf. It’s was/is at best “barely viable” against semi-competent opponents.

While we should not listen to QQing to estimate the efficiency of a build, condi shatter is considered (with a solid consensus) the most OP build in WvW, and still strong in PvP.

Condition Shatter is hardly in a good spot right now, and is looking to be largely worse off than before the recent patches. Since it was not even considered to be a viable alternative to Power Shatter then, by accounts of the majority of Mesmers on this board and in game, it isn’t exaggerated to claim that any change that further negatively impacts the Condition Shatter playstyle might relegate it to a worse “niche build” spot than it was before the recent patches.

The idea is not to make condi shatter worse, it is to prevent a massive shatter cadence with full illusion count which is very easy with IR + CP, especially with alacrity baseline (basically you can shatter off-CD you will always have enough illusions without even trying).

Unlike you (apparently), I do not believe that the unnerfed IR alone is enough to replace DE/Dueling. This means that if we do what you propose, then even with CP or IR, I will need DE for adequate illusion generation. That means we’re right back at the same bad design as before, requiring Dueling for any remotely competitive shatter build.

iRev and DE are not identical. Noone will replace the other, but they both allow a fairly similar shatter production. Let’s try some maths: if I believe wiki, endurance regens at 5%/s meaning one dodge every 10s. Vigor increases this by 50%, so one dodge every ca 6s.

MW has about 10s CD, CoF, every 20s. That’s 3 shatter every 20s, hence 1 shatter every ca 6s… So you have 1 extra clone every 6s. But because you have alacrity, your shatter are actually on a lower CD so you gain potentially much more.

Actually, I do not want unnerfed IRev, ideally I would like iRev on kitten iCD AND moved to compete with CP.

You claim insufficient reasoning, but please name me a Power Shatter Chronomancer build that won’t take Dueling? What are you going to drop Dueling for? Chaos? Insp? Ill? Please! Dueling just has way too much to offer to Power Shatter.

Dueling is mostly useful for its GM: DE is a staple, some people go for a mantra based. Everything else is not nearly as useful as what can be found in other lines. Chrono replaces dueling very advantageously. Domination + chaos + chronomancer would be my go-to power shatter build.

So we still have Dueling as a must have for the most popular Mesmer shatter build. So why are we discussing changing IR to compete with CP? Are we improving build diversity with that, or do we want to keep the BWE1 IR at all cost, even if it means screwing over other potential builds in the process?

IR in BWE1 was filling a role it does not anymore: generating illusions when you don’t have many other sources of it (meaning without DE and CP). Now it needs one or the other to work properly.

Another question for you. Will your proposed change decrease the illusion generation for non-Dueling Chronomancers over what they had in BWE2? The only truthful answer is a resounding yes! Obviously! Duh! That alone is proof enough that my reasoning is quite sound, thank you very much!

It will decrease the max number obtainable (which is currently DE+CP+iR) but increases the minimum number for those who have no CP nor DE.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

I repeat, you’ve given no good reasoning behind your assertion that DE would be required, especially compared to the current 2-illusion regime.

lol! Now you’re just getting silly. No good reason? Assertion? DE has been a requirement for shatter builds for the entire game’s existence! This is a fact shared by pretty much anyone who has ever had a clue about any form of shatter-based Mesmer play. People have time and again tried to create Shatter builds that didn’t take DE, but they all failed miserably in presenting these builds as being competitive/viable. Do you deny this?

Some people run domination,dueling, inspiration with a mantra build (so no DE), even in ESLs (more before the mantra nerf, but some still do it). Add iRev or CP and DE is definitely not needed to have a viable clone generation

So in general, I could not disagree more with every single word you write…

I perfectly agree with AlphatheWhite. As I see it, CP should be a great trait for every mesmer wanting to play a phantasm playstyle in PvP (which is currently possible but not that easy). iRev clearly is more for shatter-oriented mesmers who can now live more comfortably without DE. In particular, new type of supporty builds become possible with chrono instead of dueling. Instead, we have people taking DE + CP + iRev and wreck everything because of an excessive shatter cadence (especially condi since power is limited by the CD of MW).

style.6173:

Your logic is just as faulty as his. Unless ANET releases the actual data, no one knows if it is actually working correctly or not.

It’s not that hard to do some statistics, and Im fairly sure it will work.

The system is great. As people said, it allows people who like courtyard or sky hammer to still have their vote taken into account even if they are the only ones who like these maps.

I love courtyard, my only problem is that when you PUG, you usually favor 1v1 builds so I would love to be able to switch build more easily to put my team fighter builds. I always have a blast in courtyard when I play support and hate it when I play “roaming” builds.

I main mesmer, and rangers are difficult for me.

• a mesmer is deadlier in melee range
• a mesmer suffers a lot from immobilize (the main builds use dodges to create clones + have little condition removal). In particular, condi mesmer is dead to an entangle because we lack the cleave to get rid of the vines.

Also, I don’t play much ranger, but I guess the pet have a easier time following the “real” mesmer when it just reappears out of stealth.

I think the easy answer is do it if your party is ok with it (friends or warned PUG).

This being said, I think there is not so much place to be creative in current PvE. HoT will probably change that. The reason is that most mechanics are either redundant (defensive mechanics) or negated by the current design (confusion/torment, interrupts, etc…).

I think the best place to play with builds is PvP. There is still a meta there, but it is meant for coordinated groups. If you just PUG PvP, you can (and often will) actually be more successful with non-meta builds. For example, I have been playing bunker/support mesmer build in PvP, something you barely even hear of, and I found it to be the most efficient in PUGs. This is mostly because everyone just forget about the concept of keeping points; everyone tend to go full offensive so by going very defensive and bunker a point + support heavily my team, I offset that quite a bit.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

I don’t think that’s a good way to look at it though. The trait isn’t supposed to be a primary healing mechanism, it’s supposed to be a relatively small supplemental heal that will compound into something significant over time if you’re producing a lot of healing output. In that respect, 2400 out of 3 mantra channels is a reasonable bonus. It’s increasing your total healing output by 20%, and that’s a measurable impact.

But you can’t produce a lot of healing output. You are taking it so that 2400+3000= 5400 every 15.75 (spamming recovery) seconds is around 340 health per second, + regen would be 400 health per second + 150 (mantra of pain) = ~550 health per second output. Including outside heal in the 20% would give you +143 when by that helpful guard to a total of 693. not too bad

Cleric guard. 144(empower spam) 134 (orb of light spam) +147 (signet of courage)148(guestimation they dodge every 11 seconds)+211 virtue of resolve = ~714 health per second output
-doesn’t waste utility or heal.

First: we are not supposed to beat a cleric guard. Cleric guard is amazing at direct support, but does not do anything to enemies. A cleric mesmer can do very high support (very close to cleric guardian) but still have some decent enemy debuff (blinds, boon removal, interrupts…).

Second, by having more than one mantra, you can get additional outgoing healing. In particular, mantra of pain can be spammed ridiculously easily.

I am currently playing a settler interrupt mesmer. The idea is to support through

• mantra healing + condition cleanse
• boonshare + stability on mantra for stomp/revive
• revive (rune of mercy)
• interrupts to debuff the enemy + gain might (to share)

And on average in optimal conditions (courtyard) I have as much outgoing healing and boons than my bunker guardian. But on top, I have additional debuff, interrupts etc… The only thing which makes mesmer a bit less optimal than guardian in direct support is that the healing is not necessarily available on demand. I cannot keep my mantras uncharged to give the healing when needed.

For the damage, the fact that the warden takes quite a lot of time to do its damage while standing in place means that this is definitely not the best damaging phantasm. Personally, I think in terms of damage, the pistol is the highest, and greatsword if you want a more AOE component.

But then there is the utility part… The warden already has projectile destruction baseline. It is true that positioning is particularly difficult with this weapon. You basically would need to cast the warden on a nearby enemy, and while he moves away from it, you move towards it to get protected by its reflection. The focus 4 is also a bit difficult because often, ranged class will play from a higher ground (typically ranger) and may go over the reflection wall.

Overall, a great PvE weapon, but difficult in PvP setting.

The PvE community may have turned more elitist since last time you checked. So shatter builds are very possible, and maybe even more powerful than before with Illusionary Persona (you count as a clone) baseline. But the best sustained damage comes from phantasms, and shattering means destroying them (until chronomancer comes), so shattering is not “optimal”. However, because of the new trait structure, you do have access to the key shatter traits (IP and Mental Anguish) even in a phantasm build, so you can still do very strong shatters, especially to finish enemies, or against trash mobs for spike AOE damage. If you are speaking open-world PvE, anything works anyway really (even conditions, which are now very viable in PvE, though not necessarily optimal)

If you are asking about “organized PvE” (dungeons/fractals), there are currently discussion about what is the most powerful mesmer build once chronomancer comes:

• maximizing damage with phantasms
• maximizing support to your party with wells (alacrity + quickness)
  thanks to chronophantasma + alacrity on shatter, shattering may actually be useful in the second case.

keenlam.4753:

Silverkey.2078:

Good news, interrupt will soon work (again) in PvE. You won’t really interrupt, but you will get your interrupt traits.

Source?

/15char

Well I realize it’s actually more like me extrapolating on something:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Chronomancer-Changes-for-Next-BWE/first#post5383336

They want traits proccing on CC/condition to work despite the boss being immune to the said CC/conditions. He does not mention interrupt as such, but that seems like a logical conclusion (especially because if I understand well it used to work).

Good news, interrupt will soon work (again) in PvE. You won’t really interrupt, but you will get your interrupt traits.

nearlight.3064:

Hammerguard.9834:

I can’t believe people are still crying about this. Why is it okay to be bursted down by a power engi, thief, guardian, or mesmer and not okay to be bursted down by condis? It’s the same thing. You have slow reaction times and you’re going to pay for it.

It’s not truly about this. The fact is that there isn’t a truly viable damage over time attrition based gameplay in this game. The closest thing to it are bruiser builds, but only because they have high sustain but tend to rely on burst damage anyway.

I guess this comes from 2 things:

• too much condition cleanse. The reason burning still works is because it happens over short duration so that cleansing only prevent a small part of the burst. Attrition playstyle means a few stacks of long duration bleeds and poison, but they get cleansed too easily and the enemy out-heals you very easily.
• PvP design: if your job is to kill, do it fast. If your job is to defend, then you often end up in team fights, and team fights do not favor conditions because of AOE cleanse.

The only way I see conditions coming back in defensive builds is if they reduce the amount of AOE cleanse (they won’t) or if they add a condition, sort of opposite to resistance, which prevents cleansing. It could work like if you cleanse while you have this condition (let’s call it “incurable”), it will only cleanse the incurable, so you need 2 cleanses to remove the condis. But that would now favor burning even more than the other conditions…

Ross Biddle.2367:

Assuming decent duration, resistance is vastly superior to removal because

• It has no condi limit

• It can be activated preemptively or retroactively.

• It provides a superior gameplay mechanic, the details of which are far more superior a topic for here

I accept the argument. It is basically immunity to conditions for at least 3s (assuming it ticks 1s resistance), which is particularly strong against burst conditions like burning, which to be honest is the main condition you want to avoid.

I guess I was still locked in the mindset that during BWE1 I used the trait to remove conditions on wells which I missed a lot in BWE2 (I had to use null field).

Zenith.7301:

Well, chaos armor is not the defensive utility mesmers use, as chaos armor is kinda garbage.

The real appeal comes from chaos storm daze+aegis and the wonderful tricks you can use with phase retreat for platform teleports. It’s a really good kiting weapon whereas the greatsword has very little tools to cope with someone who gets in your face in melee.

Chaos armor is not kittenuch as defensive tool for the boons it gives, and is definitely good traited (Chaotic Dampening and Illusionary Membrane) as it guarantees protection. But in my text I was very general “defensive with […] the boons from many skills”. I didn’t include the daze, since most mesmer weapons have some interrupts, but it is good though unreliable.

Oops, we’re in the necro forum

spoj.9672:

I was talking about PvP though. In PvE people REALLY dont need it and they dont use it. Completely different situation.

Staff has always felt like it hurt me more by swapping to it. So i switched to using double offhands in PvP. Much better results and no longer get that feeling of uselessness when i swap to the other weapon set. Honestly no clue why “top players” and PvP “meta builds” still advocate it so highly. The ranged pressure can be covered in better ways without kittening half your build in other situations.

I think it’s simply because the range pressure in core necro is given by the death shroud. Staff is more the defensive weapon. I think it is very similar to the mesmer staff. Despite having already a good ranged weapon (GS), mesmers, including power mesmers do like the staff for its utilities (defensive with chaos armor and the boons from many skills, mobility with phase retreat).

I don’t think the staff is bad. It has a clear niche. Of course, it is currently used in basically all builds because of lack of other viable weapons. But I think it is a good weapon even compared to other non-necro weapons.

However: it is boring in terms of animation/use. Especially as a beginner, I just felt like I was putting all my marks on the ground and then AA until the cooldown ends. I would love each skill to feel a bit more unique.

Pretty much as everyone said: it is not an offensive weapon as such, but it brings amazing utilities.

• Sustain: regen on #2 + good LF especially with soul marks
• our only chance to escape: run and put #3 (chill) and/or #5 (fear) behind you
• interrupt #5
• condi transfer #4

I usually put 2 and 3 without thinking too much and keep 4 and 5 for more important stuff (condi removal, interrupt, fear for capping/decapping when only 1 tick missing)

Seize the moment: also works with IP (but possibly reduce the quickness per illusion)

About well of eternity: I would have preferred some condi removal, but resistance is next best (and allows not to step too much on null field).

What about burning is the only condition which can crit (the crit procs on application, not on each tick). This way it can remain as powerful as it is, but require full stat investment (condi damage, precision, power or ferocity depending on hybrid or full condi) to be strong.

I will be completely extrapolating here:

For the expansion, a-net decided to allocate a specific developer to a group of professions. They still all decide together, but one is “more in charge”. These can be seen for the specialization patch announcement:

• Karl: elementalist, thief, guardian
• Robert: mesmer, necromancer
• Matt: engineer?
• Roy: ranger, warrior

Robert and Karl did their job in time for the elite spec (with Robert being great). However, Roy got too caught up with the revenant. So warrior and ranger got left apart. For the engineer, I don’t quite know if Matt is really in charge of it, or if anyone is for that matter.

To fix this, Robert took charge of the warrior spec. Karl having bad reviews for his own specializations is probably fully caught up with it. So I would not be surprised if Robert also takes care of the ranger (which would be a good thing).

In terms of communication, it has improved a lot for all the classes which have had their elite spec revealed. All profession forums felt abandoned, but now they have “regularly” developer posts. The problem of ranger and engineer is that they do not have dedicated developers right now. That means no discussion either. But as soon as their specs are out, I expect this to be fixed. I do not know if Roy will come back on ranger and warrior when the revenant is in a more finished state.

In any case, I have faith in the future because I really think a-net did NOT have a balance team before but now has one, and I just hope they will keep it that way.

Burn is NOT an attrition condition. Burn is a burst condition.

I think the iCD only prevents using with mantras, which is not a bad idea considering that currently the inspiration line almost only works well with mantras (Restorative Mantras is our best outgoing healing source and Mender’s Purity works best with mantra of recovery). But I agree an even better solution would have been “you heal allies for 20% of your own healing”.

I personally think PvP is in one of the best state it’s ever been, with more good builds than ever.

However, D/D elementalists is OP and rangers are UP. Burning is OP on elementalists only, though people don’t know how to handle burn builds in lower tiers. Vamp runes are stupid. Mesmer is fine with the exception of stealth abuse. Warriors are one the weak side and mostly saved by the OP-ness of rampage. Thieves have lost diversity.
I think build diversity could still be increased, but if you watch ESL, it’s hard to see any team with the same comp (except they all have about 2 elementalists)

Couldn’t we have : when the ranger dodges, the pet becomes invulnerable (like if he also dodged)? This could be easy way to protect our pet from a big attack.

Ideally, the pet should on his own avoid AOEs…

I am not sure about mesmer in soldier gear. The sustained damage of mesmers is really awful. However I did play support/bunker mesmer (cleric or settler amulet) and it does work somewhat fine, but a cleric guardian can do the same with less effort. And chronomancer do provide a very unique form of support, although I would stick with fairly offensive amulets.