Guild Wars 2

Charging consecutive mantras appears to increase or decrease the pitch of the default audio track for mantra charging as of yesterday’s patch.

Actually finding it quite fun.

You should post your channel log of shatter damage for people to scrutinise.

Thieves counter Mesmer pretty hard these days, so don’t be surprised if you get your kitten handed to you often by competent Thieves. Really not a good idea to go full zerker if you’re not too experienced. A mixture of zerker, knight’s and possibly Cavalier’s might be a better idea for learning the ins and outs of the power Mesmer.

I very much agree. Really would be nice for Mesmer Scepter to be brought up to date with the rest of the game. Confusing Images in particular is just so clunky, it’s a bit ridiculous. The auto-attack really needs an after cast reduction too.

Reduce damage numbers as applicable if needed, just make it more fun to use!

It would be a travesty if there was no new main hand weapon to accompany the supposed shield. I’ve always found the lack of main-hand variant to be a source of Mesmer build stagnation, so I actually think a new main-hand is quite important.

Edit: It’s entirely possible that specialising as a Mesmer provides different main-hand sword skills.

I also was about to upgrade to the digital deluxe as I’m quite excited about the expansion and was therefore spurred on to upgrade. But 2000 gems is a bit mental in the first place, and completely out of the question with the current sale on new accounts.

It just discourages me from actually buying gems, which is a shame because it’s something I’m happy to do otherwise.

Sagat.3285:

Simonoly.4352:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

If I reaalllyy let it roam, that shatter effect may actually be linked to our actual shatters? doing power damage on [F1], Confusion [F2] AoE Daze [F3] and AoE Distort [F4]? Duration likely wouldn’t be linked to how many clones we have and would likely be treated as if a 1 clone shatter.

Ah.. dreams.

I think this seems quite plausible. There was mention of the specialisations affecting profession mechanics.

I believe it was new profession mechanic.

Oh yes quite right. Just checked the transcript again

Chaos Archangel.5071:

If I reaalllyy let it roam, that shatter effect may actually be linked to our actual shatters? doing power damage on [F1], Confusion [F2] AoE Daze [F3] and AoE Distort [F4]? Duration likely wouldn’t be linked to how many clones we have and would likely be treated as if a 1 clone shatter.

Ah.. dreams.

I think this seems quite plausible. There was mention of the specialisations affecting profession mechanics.

Looks like it’s either going to be an AoE cripple or chill (or a new slowing effect) followed by a knock-down + damage at the end of the channel. It also looks like it’s being sort of ‘shattered’ at the end there which makes me think it might actually be a two part skill like Into the Void.

Counter Blade is pretty amazing when combined with Diversion to rack up a full 25 vulnerability with Dazzling pre-mind wrack. It’s also very good for interrupting stomps, ressing etc because of the pierce.

The Counter attack itself is seldom useful unless you’re moving out of melee range after you block.

The only thing you have to concern yourself over with iSwordsman is aegis for obvious reasons. GS is pretty good for quickly and easily removing that in advance.

Well the change is quite obviously there to help Mesmer against Thieves. I suppose Rangers, Engineers and other Mesmers that rely on stealth stomps might have to try a bit harder. It won’t change the outcome of most fights against a Mesmer though. You still don’t need stability or a source of blind as the Mesmer cannot CC you. Also, Deception is still chaotic and can actually make things worse for a Mesmer at times.

The buffs to condition Mesmer dps are as a consequence of dysfunctional skills. Phantasmal Mage just needed a cooldown reduction and a faster projectile that didn’t crawl along the ground, but apparently an extra stack of confusion was the answer. Confusing Images just needed a wind-up/cast time/after cast reduction to not make it so clunky to use, but apparently 2 extra seconds of confusion is what it really needed.

Meh, I don’t get it either.

“Dev note: This penalty felt unnecessary and it wasn’t fun”

This was quite important for me to see. There are quite a few skills in the game that just aren’t particularly fun due to various penalties and lack of rewards for landing as a part of a combo. So I’m glad to see some concerns over this from the balance team.

In particular, I really would love for the Mesmer scepter auto-attack to be revised. It is so painfully slow that even with the new torment it’s still not fun to use. The after-cast from Ether Clone is really quite crippling for chaining attacks. It kind of feels wrong that Mesmer, a class that thematically exudes such finesse, has such a clunky auto-attack chain.

Deception: Nice bit of help against Thieves in particular.

Phantasmal Mage: will still under perform due to the terrible projectile tracking, long cooldown and now even longer time between attacks. Needs an overhaul as it’s still not fun to use.

Confusing Images: change is strange as the real issue with the skill was the long channel time. Coupled with the slow Ether Bolt attack chain, scepter is still a rather clunky and often not very fun weapon to use.

Time Warp: nice change, but surely it would have been more interesting to just make it a glamour?

Illusion of Life and Phantasmal Defender: don’t think I even use these enough to comment on how anything will change. yay?

No love for the functionless glamour and Grandmaster traits or poor old Mimic with it’s newly superfluous functionality

Mogar.9216:

That is so not true. Bunker meta has been around since release. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the best way to win is bunker up a pt. Since kills get you so little pts compared to holding a pt. What changed is cele meta made the bunkers do as much damage as burst as well. So the old meta that required 1 or 2 dps changed to all bunker now.

Pretty much this.

Lewis’s editorial is well written but kind of lacks perspective. Metas are shaped by all sorts of confounding variables. Saying that people bunker because they’re scared of Thieves and Mesmers is only possibly true of very low end play. But really, it’s just that the community has had enough time to deduce that celestial bunker builds are extremely viable right now and are often optimal builds for bunkering (an established role existing since beta) whilst still dealing decent burst (air and flame sigil stacking) and noticeable condition damage.

Crit damage has already been nerfed. Any further nerf will actually perpetuate bunker dominance and Thief and Mesmer will still fill zerker roles because this is what is most viable for these classes.

Syprus Soulslayer.1640:

Simonoly.4352:

In WvW celestial anything works. You can basically just play like a PU condi/phantasm Mesmer and run in a circle rotating skills and most things just die. Pretty good for duelling in WvW.

Most people can’t be bothered to go through the hassle of making a full celestial set though, hence why there’s very little talk of it in regards to WvW.

You don’t need PU to be successful, I don’t use it and do just fine. I’m not FULL celestial maybe 70-75% I mixed in some zerk and 1 piece of knights to up my power

I meant, you just need to play ‘like’ a PU condi/phantasm Mesmer. You just have to get phantasms/illusions up and can focus almost entirely on your own survivability as there’s no need to set up any burst, lockdowns etc, which makes it very strong for duels. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just one of many playstyles.

In WvW celestial anything works. You can basically just play like a PU condi/phantasm Mesmer and run in a circle rotating skills and most things just die. Pretty good for duelling in WvW.

Most people can’t be bothered to go through the hassle of making a full celestial set though, hence why there’s very little talk of it in regards to WvW.

I’m really not seeing anything like the OP listed on my server. WvW plays pretty much the same with a noticeable increase in average zerg size and a disappointing decrease in small group roaming. See quite a few new players coming into WvW and being generally confused about where they need to go and end simply merging with the commander blob.

I find it quite boring when my small group can take a T3 tower with absolutely no opposition.

Either needs to be per illusion or just needs to be like Shattered Conditions and provide those boons to whole party within a 600 radius.

I love PPK and really hope it stays. It’s very satisfying for players that take the time to build and play correctly in outnumbered fights to see that their effort wasn’t wasted in a points sense.

Quite like to see white swords back though. Their removal has made WvW rather hollow.

I’d really like for Anet to actually make the base functionality of Ranger valuable in all game modes. They don’t really have any resources that are important or unique.

As for Rapid Fire, it’s a bit silly how easy it is to use and feels rather unbalanced at present. The channel time reduction was good because it was tedious before, but it requires so little risk or effort to land for such a powerful burst skill now. I think that the base range of Rapid Fire should be reduced to 900 so you actually have to stay within your PBS range to land the full burst. Also 10 seconds is rather too short of a cooldown for such a powerful skill. Compare it with say…..Confusing Images on Mesmer that has a base 12 second CD, only 900 range and takes 3 seconds to channel for a measly 5 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds (~5K damage on full zerk if each hit crits) and Rapid Fire begins to looks positively mental.

Although I also think that Volley and Phantasmal Berserker should have their ranges reduced to 900 so that players can’t just sit at max range whilst landing heavy hitting skills (the exception being Kill Shot ofc). Should be more reasons for players to adjust their range relative to their target.

Pretty much all the Mesmer traits and skills that apply confusion are outdated…

Phantasmal Mage has the longest cooldown of the all the weapon phantasms as I presume both the retaliation and confusion that it applied were considered ‘strong’ on release. However, even before confusion and retaliation were nerfed in WvW, Phantasmal Mage had terrible projectile tracking and an overly long cooldown that didn’t really suit Mesmer weapon skill rotations. With the subsequent nerfs it became an obsolete phantasm that is really only of any use as an unreliable source of condition removal….that requires 4 trait points.

The same tale can be applied to almost every form of confusion application Mesmer has. It’s all horribly outdated.

Downed state is great, but I agree that its presence in WvW should be modified to create a more satisfying gameplay experience for all.

In particular, you should not be able to revive a fully defeated player when you are in combat. Speed ressing of dead players is just a horrible thing to behold and frustrating beyond belief. Playing exceptionally well to overcome an enormous zerg whilst outnumbered only for your efforts to be meaningless when 10 players can just drop arms and bring a player back from the dead. It’s pretty brainless stuff.

Weapon/profession skill wise:

Confusing Images channel reduction. Current 3 seconds is outdated for just 5 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds.

Phantasmal Mage cooldown reduced to 20 seconds. 30 seconds is far too long for such a weak phantasm.

After cast of Ether Clone reduced. It’s far too clunky in its current state. Kind of unenjoyable to use as it doesn’t flow very well at all.

Cry of Frustration confusion duration increased to 5 seconds. Base duration is very unimpressive.

Illusionary Riposte should have more payoff for landing the counter attack and probably soaking up a load of damage that you were initially blocking. Should apply 5 seconds of weakness upon successfully landing a counter attack.

As a guild mate said to me last week “mutations should add just as much as they take away”.

If a feature of WvW is taken away for a monthly event, something should also be added.

Example: This month golems and rams require twice the supply to build. Trebuchets and catapults do double damage.

Example: This month white swords no longer appear when an objective is contested. Orange swords appear when more than 5 players engage in combat.

Example: This month dolyaks are permanently chilled. Camps and tower/keep supply huts can store twice as much supply.

Got to be Frifox for taking on the mantel of the Mesmer bug thread when we were in our darkest hour. I’m fully convinced that the work that went into that thread led to some game changing improvements that made the Mesmer class so much more enjoyable to play now. Cheers again!

Edit: I can’t remember who originally started up that massive comprehensive Mesmer bug list, but thanks to you too!

It sure is helpful at allowing groups to take structures with absolutely no competition from the enemy servers. But my small havoc/roaming squad finds this all very boring and lifeless.

I guess the removal of white swords is enjoyable for people who play for PPT and/or karma/wxp trains. But it’s pretty horrible for those of us that love interacting with enemy servers.

T3 EU

Removal of white swords has already proven to be an ‘anti-community’ feature. White swords provided a means for players on opposing servers to come together and enjoy the mechanics of WvW together through competitive play.

Myself and many people in my guild are very disappointed with this change. Last night we were switching between maps hunting a larger group of enemies that were attempting golem rushes on various upgraded structures. It reached a point where we missed them and they were flipped a fully upgraded keep before we could arrive to defend. Where usually white swords would provide us with a means to find fun enemy sieges to take part in, we are now missing out on so many potential battles and it’s really quite disheartening.

MMOs are supposed be about participation. This change diminishes this for WvW greatly.

Just as expected the removal of white swords has made WvW a very boring place. Like ships passing in the night, it’s so difficult to find players on enemy servers anymore. I am running around an enemy borderland with seemingly nothing to fight even though I am apparently ‘outmanned’. I see a camp flip, I run to it only to find that they have of course moved on and then something somewhere else flips, but too late! I’m basically running around in circles attempting to ‘predict’ where people are going or relying on serendipity to place me with enemies, which is time consuming and extremely dull.

I feel like the removal of white swords is excluding me from WvW activities.

We still have a decent amount of small group roamers on Gandara, but we see hardly any roaming from the servers we come up against, so it’s almost exclusively a zerg busting activity now.

Maskaganda.2043:

It’s a very bad change and a step in the wrong direction.

My main concern is that in EU servers, outside of primetime, it’s already very hard to find good fights, especially in the borderlands.

The removal of white swords will obviously worsen it as stuff will be capped without warning.
Most of the times I play outside primetime me or my small group are the only ones from my server on that bl. It is impossible to “scout” for enemies who already outnumber you on 8 or 10 different possible locations, it’s already hard enough getting there with the swords giving us some warning, finding the enemies blindly will be very hard, not to mention incredibly boring.

I don’t really care much for ppt, the only reason I play wvw is to have some fun fights. WvW will likely be dead for 19h a day now, unless you still care about the score.

then there’s also everything Lord Kuru said.

So much this. White swords are so important for bringing players together for fun fights.

World vs. World: Sneak Attack? Since when have any of the best tales of WvW been about a group of people who took a T3 structure with no enemy defence?

For WvW, I personally enjoy 0/6/0/2/6 for the extra mantra charge and Mender’s Purity, allowing me to free up a utility spot that I would usually reserve for personal cleanse. Alternatively I use 4/4/0/0/6 when I want more upfront boon stripping or 0/4/4/0/6 if I want to be a bit tankier or want more might through CI.

Green arrow just means walking stacks.

Perhaps make it mirror the exact duration of the CC received. I’d definitely consider taking it then.

The might lasts for 10 seconds, which is pretty darn good. So I don’t think it necessarily needs a buff.

But 2 stacks for 5 seconds could make things interesting.

How strange to see this post. D/D celestial Eles and Thieves are the absolute worst culprits for angry whispers for me.

I’d happily see the whisper functionality disabled for enemy players. I care not for your feelings.

Necro! This is a real pain in the kitten. Just want to do map completion and having to wait quite a long time for the events to reset.

Also, players keep completing the events that would allow for the flame legion to respawn, so you have to wait an incredibly long time to do just one renown heart!

Please add more things to do even when the portal is open, so future players don’t have to pull their hair out like myself!

Kraljevo.2801:

Simonoly.4352:

Haven’t experienced NA WvW yet, but EU is mostly large GWEN trains with a light splattering of Rangers. Solo roaming is almost exclusively Thief territory now. Small group roaming is almost completely dead and those of us that do continue to roam as a small group are basically experts at zerg dismantling because that’s basically all that is left to do.

I mostly agree with you. But! Just because gandara plays against 2 of the most boring servers in this matchup does not mean roaming is dead…

It’s true. They are so boring. Help us please!

New Mimic is awful compared to it’s old functionality. Unfortunately Anet will never revert it because, well, they don’t do that.

Also, there would be a lot of dead Rangers now. Too many for Anet to account for.

Rym.1469:

I imagine Anet don’t want it to reach a point where a Warrior/Mesmer/Guardian/Engineer uses Endure Pain/Distortion/Shelter/Elixir S, Gear Shield at say 1/3 health and, whilst in stance/distortion/heal/shrink, block, is healed to full health by local water field blasts and other AoE heals. It would be an enormous buff to Warrior/Mesmer/Guardian/Engineer sustain. Not sure if it’s the sort of thing Warrior/Mesmer/Guardian/Engineer needs in sPvP.

Oh, wait…

None of those things constitute the same mechanic as an additional pool of health.

I think the duration fits the style of application. It can only be applied after weapon swap and when it’s ready there is a symbol under your enemy’s health bar to indicate that their next attack will apply poison, so you know when it’s coming. If someone swaps weapons so that they can counter your healing with poison that’s just good gameplay.

I personally find Doom sigils much better than all the on-crit/on-hit sigils as there’s no way of knowing when one of those is going to proc on an enemy attack. If I had it my way, there would be tool bar symbols for every passive trait/rune/sigil effect in the game. Might get a little cluttered though.

You need to post a bit more info OP. Is this in sPvP or WvW? What build are you using? What sort of Ele are you struggling against? D/D or S/D?

This game still has no new skills (apart from the largely ignored heals) so I’ll take any and all proposed hammer Mesmer suggestions. Could care less about balance issues, I want the Phantasmal Patty Maker now Anet!

I imagine Anet don’t want it to reach a point where a Necromancer enters Death Shroud at say 1/3 health and, whilst in death shroud, is healed to full health by local water field blasts and other AoE heals. It would be an enormous buff to Necromancer sustain. Not sure if it’s the sort of thing Necromancer needs in sPvP.

Haven’t experienced NA WvW yet, but EU is mostly large GWEN trains with a light splattering of Rangers. Solo roaming is almost exclusively Thief territory now. Small group roaming is almost completely dead and those of us that do continue to roam as a small group are basically experts at zerg dismantling because that’s basically all that is left to do.

Necromancers are table tennis because a Necro in Plague Form without stability is basically a ping pong ball.

They’re an enormous buff for border hopping zerg balls. Attempted to take a tower with 3 other people earlier this week. Hit with two siege disablers which was enough time for the enemy zerg to leave EB and run us down. Where as in the past there was a sense of urgency for border hopping zergs to choose between carrying on PvDing their current objective or responding to a scout and zerging down the attackers, they can now have a player spam siege disablers until they have time to do something about it. It’s making things worse.

Theses were obviously put in place to prevent multi ram rushes from zergs, but the effects trickle down and hit smaller groups very hard. Most zergs can easily back off and build some catapults instead or simply dps a door down. Small groups can rarely do this.

Siege disablers do nothing but empower zergs in the long run.

It seems to function as intended on land but in water it’s utter madness as the pet will continue to heal the Ranger at an alarming rate even whilst defeated. It also seems to ignore various forms of underwater CC.

But then again, nobody cares about underwater combat. You should see what I can do with a condi Mesmer underwater when traited for Illusionary Elasticity.

Jaken.6801:

Nope. Any long range attack outside the bubble is being neglected.
Tried that as well and I just saw the shielding pop up

This is correct. I could have sworn that my Duellist’s projectiles were able to hit yesterday, but trying the fight again this morning it wasn’t working at all. Probably tunnel visioning on my end.

Probably best to go down the mantra dps build until Anet perhaps addresses this. It sure is tedious and slow on Mesmer without illusions. Shatter is probably worth a shot too.

Yeah even in full zerker, without illusions it was kind of annoying fight. This isn’t the first time this has happened, so I retraited for Empowering Mantras. Also swapped in my pistol off-hand with Duellist’s Discipline so I could summon Phantasmal Duellists that could unload outside of the range of the enemy AoE.