Guild Wars 2

Vengeance is by no mean pointless, but it is situational. You can use your little extra time to get one more shot at turning the tide of the fight. Sometimes there are multiple allies and/or enemies downed when you get downed, so vengeance allows you to rally, stomp or rez and even if you don’t rally at the end, you have helped your team greatly.

A full 100% chance rally would be possibly OP in PvE or WvW where you can have very many targets.

To be fair, as a mesmer main, I don’t really like illusionary reversion + CP. Having both just promotes shatter spam. One of the reasons why signet of illusion was rarely used before but is now meta is that you never had that many clones and therefore you didn’t use shatters so often.

I think CP should stay intact because it potentially allows phantasm mesmer to shatter (in particular in PvE) which is great and a nice band-aid to our stupid class mechanics.

I am not sure about iRev. I still think (and have been suggesting it since the beta week-ends) that iRev and CP should compete with each other. They are really only OP if together.

I find this shatter spam build so boring I have stopped playing mesmer and now focus on my reaper.

I don’t think it is that difficult. Sure, those teams won’t be meta-tier, but if you just try to think of roles and stuff, you can easily make up 5 different builds. Also, the rules are still fairly loose, so you can easily run variations of the meta. For example, you could imagine a 5 necro team with

• a dueler: MM necro
• a roamer: power necro
• a healer/damage: Sage necro (I usually played that with crusader, but they removed it so only condi is possible now)
• bruiser/condi DPS: corruptmancer
• bruiser/condi DPS: signet condimancer

I don’t pretend this is a good set up (probably more boon corrupt than needed for example), but I mostly wanted to show that you don’t usually need to go completely out of your way to find very different build. The rules are not that strict and small variations still work.

It’s really not that I am against 3v3, but I would like conquest and not just fighting, because it has more depth (I think). And conquest is just sad with only 3 players per team.

I have played condi shout last season with great success, and currently playing a fun hybrid condi/power/support build
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FvRAQNBLhZ6kZTodTsbTwcTgeTs0NYxLwKYGc6BsxCAUfgRwhC-TpQWAB7WGAg9HAA

(note: Sage has condi main and healing minor unlike what the website says)

I think condi reaper is by no mean bad (I am just surprise to see Hollts advertising for it)

I am having a lot of fun with this build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kZTodTsbTwcTgeTs0NYxLwKYGc6BsxCAUfgRwhC-TpQWAB7WGAg9HAA

which is great for unranked because it does everything (support, damage and survivability). With shouts, you can pretty much survive forever in a team fight even if focused, you can rez allies since people got used to SnR but don’t expect transfusion.

I use NCSY instead of suffer if I don’t face condi-heavy comp.

I used to play a similar build with mercenary and curses instead of BM in season 2. The BM build looses a bit of damage pressure and mostly boon corrupt and gain some support. Both are ok I think.

(PS: I think gw2skills got the sage amulet wrong. I think it is HP minor stat and condi major)

Well, a “no HoT” tournament is definitely something I would enjoy watching, and one of you may proceed and organize it if you want.

But my question was about a class stacking tournament. Should I conclude that the interest is low?

I had a problem in Skyhammer. I was right outside the gate before the game started and the reset kept me there. So I could go to the points while others where stuck in countdown…

MethaneGas.8357:

I think quicker Life Blast would be nice.

Making Dark Path ground targeted would be reallllllyyyy strong, and if this happened I could see base Necro being picked up easily.
Or Dark Path could work like Phase Traversal from Revenant – a small channel and then an instant teleport to the target, unaffected by line of sight. Teleport even when out of range. Wherever you teleport, you do your AoE. It could also use some finishers…. maybe #5 being a blast?

I agree that DS 1 and 2 are the main offender. These suggestions would really make a big difference.

kdaddy.5431:

This needs to stop,

Elite specs are OP but they are working on a expansion and they said they were bringing more spec to mess with.

Its over, join the elite specs and try to make a build with the elite spec line and 2 core ones.

Every meta has had its OP builds and this is no different, GW2 added the 3 point line and guess what they are not taking it back so adapt.

Well, at the end, the decision is not in my hands anyway. But you can’t blame me for trying. Maybe you are happy with the current PvP status but I am not, and many others are with me.

Will new elite specs add build diversity? Well, those ones were supposed to, and they didn’t, so it does not seem like it is guaranteed. Maybe they will make the new ones more broken that the current ones.

And even if it does. I just do not enjoy the current power creeped meta. I don’t want this to be our base level.

DaShi.1368:

Buffing core specs is just pointless power creep.

which is why I do not suggest that but instead to nerf current elite specs. Simply said, we already have pointless power creep and I want to remove it as much as possible.

As you mention, more elite specs are coming. This may be our last chance to get to a good power baseline, else all future specs will be balanced around the current level (or worse).

So first thing, if you character is not level 80 yet (or does not have chrono), the leveling with a mesmer IS more difficult than with most other classes. And in general, because mesmer has the absolute worst DPS of all professions, it is a bit more difficult in solo environment.

However, applying alacrity and quickness makes up for it greatly. So in any group environment, a chronomancer is really amazing (but only one, 2 chrono in a group of 5 is a waste). You won’t have the damage of other classes, but you will improve their damage significantly.

You can find online the ideal rotation to apply quickness and alacrity. It is not extremely difficult, but you need to know it. Note that 100% uptime on quickness does require some gear investment (and/or a revenant in your party for boon duration).

I don’t know if this answers your questions.

mistsim.2748:

i dont think buffing core specs necessarily buffs elites. look at your typical elite spec. look at what GM’s it relies on, then simply buff the other ones to make the player have to decide between giving up the synergy of the elite spec’s GM, and picking up a new combo of GM’s.

this isnt a simple task. whoever is developing and testing would have to explore synergy between GM’s, not the individual GM’s, and have a goal in mind as to what the final build should feel like. this requires 1) a superior understanding of their game, and 2) a vision. sadly, the devs simply dont possess these characteristics, so they just keep pumping out new content without iterating on the old. They gamble with buffs/nerfs/ammy removals, without having a vision of the end-product, hoping the mess will somehow work out. there is no foresight in pvp development, which is why the game will always be Build Wars: one or two builds are the best for any given prof, and once you figure them out, theyre locked into the meta due to superiority. this is why i always get excited when a huge patch comes out, try playing the builds i want to play, usually end up unlucky because said builds arent as good as the meta ones, quit the game for 6 months. rinse and repeat.

But why would buffing core specs be a better way to balance than nerfing elite specs? As I said, core specs were reasonably well balanced, and it is a waste to just scrap everything and restart from scratch.

Saiyan.1704:

What you’re proposing is a huge barrier for players to get into. Five players of the same class for each team, then mandating their builds to make sure each are on point, is a bit complicated.

Sounds interesting but difficult for players to get going, especially when people want to use a certain build but can’t because it’s being used. I recommend setting up a 2v2 or 3v3 tournament instead.

I do agree with you.

• For the theory part: I love theory crafting, so for me it is a fun challenge to make a good team comp with only one class. But this is definitely potentially difficult especially for casual players who won’t scrim just to see what is most effective. If I manage to get enough players for the first round, it will probably make things easier after though.
• finding 5 players of the same class is probably easier. Many players play at least 3 or 4 classes. I don’t see that as a big problem (but it may be).

I really would like a conquest tournament (oops, I didn’t mention it) so 5 players is needed.

As I said, I really feel that the problem of power shatter is MOSTLY that there is no place for roamers in the current PvP meta (something which thief is also suffering from).

Every single build in the meta is currently too tanky to be killed in a reasonable amount of time, which prevents efficient roaming.

The main and maybe even only way to fix this is by nerfing sustain and reset potential across the board.

Hi all

I have been thinking about this for a long time and I would like to know if there is interest for it before trying to organize it further.

The idea is to try to show the hidden build diversity of gw2 by organizing a tournament where a team consists of 5 players of the same class (e.g. 5 necro vs 5 warriors) playing conquest maps. The key thing is that each player on the same team should be playing a different build:

• each player must have a different amulet
• no 2 players can have the same traitlines, and no traitline should be present in every build (if 4 players play “spite” then the fifth one cannot play spite)
• no weapon should be present in every build (if 4 players play staff, the fifth one cannot play staff)

We should make sure to have one team for each class, and if we have more, there would be a first qualification round where all teams of the same class will fight for the spot. The tournaments will consist in weekly games between the teams so that at the end of the tournament each team will have fought every other team.

To motivate the players, a bit of gold will be given after each week and hopefully a slightly larger reward at the end of the tournament according to the final ranking.

So, do you want to see fresh air ele, cleric necro, and other underused builds? Would you be interested in watching or playing in such tournament? Are there rules I mentioned you would like changed/added/removed?

mistsim.2748:

i give zero kittens about balancing elite specs. bring up the core specs to the same level first. this should be priority.

I believe this is the wrong way to go:

• buffing a core class also buffs the elite spec. As long as the two don’t have clear role separation, they don’t work independently.
• It is easier to bring the elite spec (only one traitline, 1 weapon, 1 skill category and 1 class mechanics) to core level than the core (5 traitlines, many weapons, many skills and 1 class mechanics) to elite level.
• pre-HoT was reasonably well balanced, with all classes almost as viable (ranger a bit weak but still played sometimes, ele a bit strong, the rest fine) and some having decent build diversity (medi-power-guard, medi-burn-guard, bunker guard for example, shoutbow and rampage warrior, etc…). Bringing elite specs in line means that this balance and diversity immediately comes back too.
• power creep has really made the game less fun. PvP has become AOE CC and AOE damage and passive survivability everywhere. No need to target, no need to time your skills, just use everything out of cooldown and it will work more or less fine. Every class evade or blocks for half the time.

So no… nerfing elite specs is by far the best way to go.

(or maybe I misunderstood your message, it was not fully clear to me)

We all agree that elite specs are currently superior to core class. When introduced, elite specs were supposed to be an alternative playstyle but not a stronger one. This means elite specs were supposed to add build diversity by allowing your class to play new roles. Instead, the new role has now become the only role, all core builds being simply comparatively unviable. So build diversity went down drastically.

I believe this is a serious problem and the best way to fix it is to:

• identify for each class which role the core specs excel at and which role the elite specs are suppose to add
• identify which elements (traits, weapons or class mechanics) of the elite specs make them too strong

So here is my analysis. I am not fluent with all classes, so I may overlook some things. Please give me your opinion if you agree or disagree with me.

I went for the class in order (light -> heavy armor, low HP-> high HP) which makes me start with elementalist, probably one of the tougher nuts to crack.

Some mesmers may hate you for it, but not me.

• You cannot balance a skill that reduces all cooldown to about 75s max. Moa was balanced around a specific cooldown and CS throws off this balance.
• As you say, CS has the potential to be a very interesting skill, with meaningful choices, but has just become a double elite skill. Boring!
• CS is one of the main thing which keeps chrono > core mesmer. I want all elite specs to be competitive but not largely superior to core specs.

So yes, as many have suggested, I think elites should not be reset by CS.

I would say:

• Absolutely essential: Rev, Ele
• Very good: Mesmer, Ranger
• Good: Necro, Engi, Thief, Warr
• Annoying but uncompetitive: Guardian

Then from your description, what you want is WvW. That is combat the way only a MMO can deliver.

Yes, yesterday was clearly a special day. First reset after linking, this was doomed to happen. We need to see if this settles.

Personally, having always been on a lowest tier server, it was nice to see so much activity on the maps. It is really a nice change of pace.

So let’s not overreact and see how the situation evolves.

I must say, the queue are a new experience for me… I can’t say that was the part I was looking forward to the most…

The problem is beyond mesmer really. Power mesmer (or thief) are roaming builds, aimed at killing fast the enemy to decap the point.

The problem is that most builds are so tanky that there is no way to achieve this fast killing, so you get trapped in a long 1v1 and roaming builds cannot sustain the fight so they end up loosing or simply having to disengage.

I am not sure there are ways to really buff a roaming build to make it work in the current meta (except some absurd OP buffing which would work just by brute force but not create a healthy game).

The only way to make power mesmer work is something which I believe is needed regardless: a buff to our sustained damage by boosting weapon damage and not phantasms. Actually, condi works just because it has high sustain and decent sustained damage. Power could also work the same in principle. However, let’s be clear on that, it would not be the shatter mesmer of old but simply a new “bruiser mesmer”, probably playing Paladin amulet, and being as easy (and not that fun) as current condi mesmer.

Brokensunday.4098:

Riranor.6315:

I do agree that this change was weird but has anyone considered why it could’ve been Necessary? In PvP the change is a huge nerf, really bad, it sucks so much. PvE though only one persons chill really counts., this new method allows necro’s to work together slightly more to increase the damage. HOWEVER it’s still not perfect because Chill does have a hard cap… I dunno I see some reasons as to why they did this but I am salty about it losing a core reason to take Reaper… it was unique but that was kinda dashed.

making chill a staking condition and apply the normal rules of the other damaging conditions to chill for necro but thats to much work I guess

It’s not that it is too much work so much that it feels weird for all other builds and classes for which do not have chill damage AND is actually a nerf since if it stacks in intensity, it does not add in duration anymore and chill debuff is insanely powerful.

I don’t know if my unranked MMR is significantly lower than my ranked MMR or if unranked players simply don’t care as much about games, but I simply feel that when I play unranked, my team mates are nowhere near as good as my team mates in ranked.

Tim.6450:

Silverkey.2078:

Many of us have been asking for chill damage to be replaced to “applying a condi whenever applying chill”. Most of us suggested torment but well… This was actually the best way to balance it.

It has some downsides (one application of chill results in only 1 stack of bleed) and some upsides (multiple applications like RS 4 into ice field is a nice condi burst, 2 reapers can stack their bleeds, one more condi to cleanse, etc…). It is not anymore a one or nothing condi, it can stack now, and I believe that is a good thing.

Another thing to note is that in the grand scheme of things, I still hope that the insane HoT power creep continues to get reduced. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Even if this means reaper is temporarily a bit weaker than some others (condi mes, tempest and revenant for example), it just means that hopefully they are the ones who get nerfed next.

So despite being a reaper player, I do think very positively of this change.

Oh come on , I really hate this HoT power creep nonsense. Do you know how HOT could not create power creep? Not releasing any new skills or releasing very weak skills, because meaningfull choices->better choices->power creep. Would people like that in their expansion? NO, they would complain and whine that it would be the worst expansion ever and that the devs couldn’t handle the game or didn’t care.

Now with this whine of HoT power creep , we got major nerfs and guess what? People are thinking reaper has no grandmaster, our theme/aesthethics (chill) is getting gutted (our longest chills are actually in the core spec so much for specialising in chill on top of that reaper now has lost its special chill for more bleed like core) and you want even to go further?! When will you be satisfied? When reaper becomes core v2?

Diversity is not power creep. The elite specs should provide a different role and thus not compete directly with pre-existing roles and thus be balanced.

For example, necro should be the best 1v1 spec and reaper the best 5v5 spec. Same for mesmer/chrono. DH should be the best offensive spec and guardian the best support/bunker spec, etc… No power creep needed.

The elite specs were suppose to broaden build diversity, give us new niches. Instead, all previous builds have become trash and you are forced to play ONLY the new niche the elite spec provide. So build diversity went down.

On top of that, post-HoT is simply much less enjoyable to me. Even if there was class balance (meaning everyone is OP), it would not be as fun, because of the excess of unfun mechanics (everyone just spams AOE damage, AOE CC, block/invulnerability, boon everywhere, boon corrupt everywhere too).

So yes, I do complain and will continue to complain about power creep.

Necro pre-HoT was slightly weak and has a few bad designs. Reaper is an improvement over this, so I don’t want reaper back to pre-HoT necro, but balanced with most other pre-HoT specs (bunker guard, shatter mes, warrior, etc…). And on top, I would love a few QoL improvement on core necro to make it as good as those too.

• PvP map updates: very positive
• some power creep fix for some classes: very positive
• most power creep still left for others: very negative
• more power creep on warrior (and a bit thief) to make it on par with other power-creeped profession: understandable because of previous point, but still negative
• literally nothing new for most classes, I feel like the builds of old are still the builds of new: negative

Many of us have been asking for chill damage to be replaced to “applying a condi whenever applying chill”. Most of us suggested torment but well… This was actually the best way to balance it.

It has some downsides (one application of chill results in only 1 stack of bleed) and some upsides (multiple applications like RS 4 into ice field is a nice condi burst, 2 reapers can stack their bleeds, one more condi to cleanse, etc…). It is not anymore a one or nothing condi, it can stack now, and I believe that is a good thing.

Another thing to note is that in the grand scheme of things, I still hope that the insane HoT power creep continues to get reduced. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Even if this means reaper is temporarily a bit weaker than some others (condi mes, tempest and revenant for example), it just means that hopefully they are the ones who get nerfed next.

So despite being a reaper player, I do think very positively of this change.

Honestly, I may repeat myself, and I know it is early, but I would love spirit watch to be included in the ESL rotation as soon as it starts again. This is a map which I feel has a different flow than the other and would be interesting to watch.

Exciton.8942:

Let’s be honest. It is not a good thing to have every long cd elite to be on the same cd as CS.

This! We can discuss it for as long as we want, but CS simply removes the possibility of balancing elite skills by their CD!

And Fay: PvE mesmer would not be dead even if CS is partly nerfed (many suggestions have been given including this one). Maintaining 100% uptime of quickness and alacrity would be more difficult (or maybe impossible) but the uptime would still be enough to justify a chrono presence in a organized group. You said it yourself, chrono is currently the most irreplaceable class in PvE, so a small nerf would not suddenly make us garbage.

Is this a serious thread?
I literally quit the game if this happens.

You know the problem of the game currently?: you can have a build which does everything (damage, control, sustain, support etc…). And now you want to add another line, meaning another way NOT to specialize? Hell no.

I don’t even know what would you be trying to fix by introducing this change.

No, right now the priority should be to erase power creep, and a good measure of that is that core classes should be viable. Basically, my reference is that bunker guard should be a thing again, but not by boosting core traits and skills but by nerfing hard the damage and insane sustain that elite specs have brought.

If I understand well, we were asked to move our comments to this post instead so:

I think Spirit Watch is great now. The frequency decrease means that you can actually focus more on caps, which is exactly what was missing. In my opinion, the map is now competitive.

Skyhammer is a map I hated before and I don’t anymore. Unlike OP I think the cannon is strong enough, full uncap is good against tanky teams. But I do agree it does not feel very unique. Basically, the cannon has become a toned-down “Tranquility” buff.

But overall great job.
Next, I would indeed love Courtyard back, as well as Raid on the Capricorn with balanced underwater combat :p

I really think spirit watch is nice and could make the game faster by allowing to decap very tanky teams. I would really love to have it added to the ESL rotations very soon

Hi all

I still think that any remaining OP-ness in the chronomancer compared to core mesmer is mostly due to continuum split. And in general, I feel that there is not enough trade-off for running chrono over core mesmer. So I thought let’s go back in time and instead of adding F5, replace the 4 shatters we currently have to more chronomancy-themed ones.

Please give your suggestions on what those could have been.

Here are mine:

• F1: Cry of Pain: a mix of mind wrack and cry of frustration (damage + confusion), but with a slightly reduced damage coefficient.
• F2: Illusion of Haste: Allies gain 1s quickness and 1s alacrity per illusion shattered. I see the chrono has mostly a support specialization, and this does just that.
• F3: Delayed Reactions: daze (0.25s) enemies and slow them (1.5s) per illusion shattered. A natural change to diversion is to apply slow. Up to 6s slow is quite strong and synergies well with Danger Time.
• F4: Continuum Split. Distorsion replaced by CS is an obvious change since both provide some sort of invulnerability. To be a better replacement, maybe CS should bring you back to life if you die during the split? On top of this replacement, I think CS should also not apply to elite skills. This would add a little more depth to it (not used for double casting elite but an actual choice of the best skill to cast) and is very needed considering that the CD of CS is now the CD of F4.

For CS, I first thought of “all skills cast during CS have their recharge reduced by 30%” or something like this, but this looses the flavor of actually going back in time.

A few comments:

Just a reminder, the purpose of a “Guardian” is to support, though it seems that has been forgotten

Yes, the purpose of “Guardian” not “Dragonhunter”. This is how balance between elite and core specs should work: you have to change playstyle. DH is supposed to be a more selfish and damage/CC orientated spec. I actually think the AOE heal should be removed from F2 and ally block from F3. DH virtues should be stronger for self but selfish.

Meanwhile we have rev over here spouting garbage with sword two every 5 seconds on little to no telegraph….

Agreed, I actually did not think that true shot was a very big problem, but well.

Overall the problem with DH is that it has some mechanics which are too strong. For example guardian has many wards (staff, hammer, to some extent sanctuary), but hammer ward is a melee + highly telegraphed skill, very hard to land; staff is ranged but is just a line. LB was a ranged ring, which made it very strong, especially seeing as the animation was so often invisible. Dragon’s Maw is a trap, with very short activation so hard to avoid especially in lower tiers.

Having those strong mechanics means either you know how to counter them and you have no problem fighting a DH or you don’t and you’re dead in less than 5s. So ideally, those mechanics should have been removed or significantly rebalanced, and thus no need to nerf everything else and the class remains competitive.

Now to be fair, the problem right now is still the power creep. Most people would still argue that DH is stronger than core guardian, and thus I think it needs further nerfs. But of course, that would require massive nerfs to all other elite specs.

Dahkeus.8243:

Weren’t slick shoes already nerfed? I thought the change from this patch would make them pretty weak on break bars.

From the patch description, they should affect each player at most once. Maybe it does not work with NPC? I haven’t tried nor seen it in action.

Xyonon.3987:

Power scepter and power sword both have around 10k dps. Sword still a tiny bit more, but you can use the scepter now for swap 3 11111 3 swap to outdamage the sword.

(Raid enviormental buffs (real dps), no food)

• Sword only: 7’727
• Scepter only: 6’719
• Both weps: 7’859

So … if you keep swapping on CD you deal more damage with the scepter. This number gets even better if you use your CS on scepter to dublicate scepter #3 and don’t use any aa’s at all.

If the combat forces you to go on range even for a few moments like VG, Gorse (you can double pierce spirits here <3), Sabby (you can hit her and turrets with the pierce <3) and Matt, I’d always use a scepter now.

And if you are running an alacrity/quickness build, since you have anyway downtime for the well casts, I guess you can get a comparatively even better DPS using scepter. (btw, did you include alacrity?)

Cyanon.1928:

Agree with you.

Mesmer needed a nerf. Expect 2 mesmers in every single S3 ESL match.

Portal Play is a huge team carrier.

If you wanna keep portals, at least nerf the Moa duration by 50%. That way, they can still have 2 Moas but they can’t waste time writing /say while their clones wreck you in Moa.

Example given by Lord Helseth at minute 30:50 Moa to Evan Lesh (ANET Gameplay Programmer).

This is Him, killing 3 players by himself using his little Mesmer last night after patch.
https://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth/v/61631445

00:22:30 – Game starts
00:30:50 – Must-watch-moment where Evan get’s moa’d…

I don’t think Moa needs nerf, I think continuum split does.

I think Spirit Watch is great now. The frequency decrease means that you can actually focus more on caps, which is exactly what was missing. In my opinion, the map is now competitive.

Skyhammer is a map I hated before and I don’t anymore. Unlike OP I think the cannon is strong enough, full uncap is good against tanky teams. But I do agree it does not feel very unique. Basically, the cannon has become a toned-down “Tranquility” buff.

But overall great job.
Next, I would indeed love Courtyard back, as well as Raid on the Capricorn with balanced underwater combat :p

The buffs to condi mesmer are actually buffs to the scepter which no competitive mesmer is using.

Then, saying that condi mesmer is currently the strongest class is seriously wrong. If you look at ESL team comps, EVERY TEAM has elementalist, revenant and reaper (maybe 1 exception). Then teams usually have 2 out of mesmer, ranger and scrapper, many teams choosing not to have mesmer and still having success. Overall, 3 team fighters and 2 duelists which can still add something to a team fight (moa/portal, heal+snr, damage+ CC respectively). And while mesmer is indeed a strong duelist, ranger does a better job because it can sustain pretty much any 1v1 and decap/recap at the same time. So no, mesmer is not the best class, it is a strong one, but replaceable, and the changes won’t improve its status.

apharma.3741:

The whole alacrity/quickness thing is chrono, not base Mesmer.

You also don’t seem to grasp exactly where the problem is Deciever, it’s that our sustained damage is tied to phantasms not that mind wrack is so strong. Trying to land more than a 2 (1+self) clone shatter on anyone without chrono super speed is about as rare as seeing a thief in pro league. It just doesn’t happen on capable or intelligent players.

The problem is that balance cannot take into account only intelligent players. Mesmer is terribly efficient in lower tiers of PvP because people do not know how to handle their clones nor dodge their shatters. So I do agree overall that shatter damage might need a little decrease (but very small) to make it less deadly in lower tiers, while our sustained damage is increased significantly to improve in PvE and high tier PvP, as well as increase our build diversity.

But as you said, having our damage on unreliable and fragile phantasms is a problem in itself and needs fixing.

They had a good team comp for aggression, but they were unable to keep their caps. That is why the current meta is absurd: the sustain of all classes, including the damage dealers, is just OP.

At the beginning of gw2, interviews about the mesmer clearly explained that porting the class from gw1 to gw2 was difficult because energy does not exist in gw2. So it was difficult to create a new mesmer identity. Illusions is what they ended up with. Thematically I think it is ok, it just does not work well from a balance perspective.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/19/massively-talks-mesmer-our-exclusive-interview-with-guild-wars/

The builds on metabattle are typically instanced PvE (dungeon/fractals or raids) and are not nearly as good in open world PvE.

In open-world PvE, you probably want one ranged weapon on top of the sword-shield, typically GS. Then, shatters will indeed be a larger part of your damage in most (short) fights, especially with chronophantasma allowing you to shatter once without loosing the phantasms. You will start to want keeping your phantasms alive if you expect the fight to last at least 10-20s.

For the utilities, you don’t need the wells and the alacrity nearly as much when playing solo, so I usually go for at least blink and usually decoy as a good way to avoid getting aggro.

This will increase your survivability a lot.

Many classes are being held back by their mechanics, and mesmer is certainly one of them.

I already made a full suggestion on how to remove damage from phantasms, see my signature. I believe this would really help the class without a full redesign.

But even clones are a problem in PvP, making low tier players confused and thinking our class (even barely viable builds like power shatter) is OP.

Ryou.2398:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Sorry I may have misinterpret this, but if you’re saying that multiclass mmorpg isn’t meant to have individual classes that are sufficient by itself, then GW2 is a very bad game

Unfortunately current PvP meta is full of bruiser builds that one build can filled most vitals roles in a battle, they can sustain and deal sufficient sustain damage that most glass specs are being pushed out. The main reason you see 5 different classes in Pro League is because of the no stacking rule.

Back to core mesmer, know that in PvP it is inevitable that you’ll face elite specs. And currently all elite specs ARE better than their core counterparts, even warrior though not by a mile like others. I’m not sure why you find that enjoyable but I can suggest some builds that allow you to survive.
Staff/Scepter+torch with Dueling/Chaos/Illusion is the standard old PU condi. You can survive quite well but don’t expect to do much in team fight.
GS/Sword+torch with Domination/Dueling/Chaos for power variant or Dueling/Chaos/Inspiration if you find condi is chewing you up.

If you’re confident about your skill, try
GS/Sword+torch or GS/Staff with Domination/Dueling/Illusion for full power shatter.
Staff/Sword+focus or Staff/Sword+pistol with Domination/Dueling/Chaos for full interrupt build.

Note all the builds listed above are rather outdated, despite they shine in the past. You should probably expect people to do better with elite spec while spending significantly less effort than you.

If all elite specs are better then any regular specs then whats the point? That is zero build diversity, im iffy about people saying this people will get bored being shohorned into one spec for every class.

Yes, many of use feel robbed. Elite specs were meant to add diversity and did exactly the opposite. For example guardians cannot play bunker support anymore, they are forced to play a medi-guard with traps and are still only bottom tier with it (though great to kill players who do not know how to counter it).

I think life force sacrifice would be the best. I already think corruption would be more balanced if they worked around LF use and not conditions (since a-net assumes the condition will be transferred and thus considers it a “plus” and not a sacrifice).

I can try to be less pessimistic and more realistic than Fay, but to be fair, he’s pretty right albeit on his usual over-dramatic tone.

The power creep of HoT is really really severe. So the situation is:

• open world PvE in core zones still work as before (though other classes do it better)
• you don’t have the new zones so it does not matter, but they are more challenging and the AOE and defenses chronomancer brings are quite helpful
• Don’t try PvP. You may have a chance playing a PU condi build, but you will not be nearly as effective as with chronomancer.
• roaming in PvP is probably the best spot for core mesmer, again as a PU condi. Essentially condi PU has always been one of the best roaming build, so even after power creep, it works, but not nearly as “easy” as before.
• big WvW fights have never been the strong point of mesmer, even less now. On the other hand, chrono does actually bring things to the table.

So as you can see, this is almost a edulcorated formulation of what Fay is saying. Playing without expac is really not an easy task because all core classes (mesmer is not unique) have been massively outgunned.

PvE or WvW?

WvW, viper is simply not enough HP, so I will assume PvE.

Then, as far as I know, before HoT, condi guard was on par with power guard, slightly more efficient against multiple enemies if I remember well.

I don’t think DH brings much to the table for condi though so I assume condi fell behind compared to power now. But I don’t have the data.

Reaper have very limited active defenses and survive a lot thanks to their passive defense (=HP sponge). So in a sense, they could be considered easier as they don’t rely as much on quick reflexes.

However, reapers also die easily to focus fire, and thus for a reaper to survive, good positioning and clever use of their few defenses make a big difference between life or death.

Also they have utilities which can be very strong if used at the right time (unblockable CC, boon corrupts) so a good reaper will turn the fight more easily than someone just spamming those critical skills off cooldown (like using unblockable CC to deny long revenant shield block etc.).

And in most cases in low-medium tier PvP, I would argue that games are won or lost more due to rotations than mechanical skills.

Hi

Some raw comments to your raw brainstorm

F3 – AoE up to 5 targets made baseline.

I don’t think gw2 need more AOE CC. I actually think CC and in particular AOE CC should be vastly diminished all over. CC should be less spam and more interrupting key skills. AOE CC should be to interrupt a team effort once (like rezzing) but should be rare and mesmer already have plenty.

iWarden …

In my suggestions (see signature) I added small ally healing, but this is another solution. I agree that focus support should not be only about reflects.

Ability to equip a Shield removed from traits and instead automatically applied when equipping Chronomancer line.

I actually think “elite weapons” should be available even to core class… (I understand this is not necessarily valid thematically, but many weapons are really needed for the class outside of their elite spec).

F5…

While I understand the balance reasoning behind it, I am unsure of this one. It definitely fits thematically and fits the role I see for mesmer and chronomancer. It just feels weird. But maybe.

Hall of Mirrors – incoming cc effects are transferred to your illusions (10s ICD per enemy and 10s ICD per illusion)

too short iCD

Bountiful Disillusionment

I like the change.

Master of Manipulation – Gain 2s Distortion whenever you use a Manipulation skill. Manipulation skills have 20% reduced cooldown.

That is beyond OP

neutralisation (buff)

what does it do?

Channeled Restoration

I find it both strong and too “passive”.

In general, I find a few things slightly overtuned, but it is an interesting mesmer rework.