Guild Wars 2

I remember when a dire perplexity PU Mesmer was a threat in a 1vX scenario. Now it’s just a nuisance that can be easily focused down with a few button presses from something glassy. I imagine it’s difficult for new players to manage (like the OP if this is indeed a genuine struggle of his/hers) but for anyone with even the tiniest amount of understanding of what the Mesmer is doing it’s just not a threat anymore.

Even in full dire with Chaos, direct damage in WvW is so high now that tanky condi 1vX Mesmer builds are very easy to kill with one simple CC led coordinated focus – it’s trivial now to overcome an enemy’s toughness/vitality. Necro auto-cast Signet of Spite will see you killing yourself if you have no cleanse. Competent Scrappers will laugh at your extremely easy to manage condi bursts. Revenants and Dragonhunters do huge damage that easily prevents you from kiting them out. Druids can now just leave any fight you try to put them in with a simple Quick Draw + Ancestral Grace. Daredevils can of course do the same and Escapist’s Absolution will see your condi burst almost completely removed if another player decides to blow a few cooldowns whilst the Daredevil evade spams to freedom (if alone stow weapon after bursting a Daredevil to set them deal with the stacks). Condi Mes performs admirably against Elementalists and killing Berserkers is depressingly trivial (which is the case no matter what you’re playing).

I don’t think “disgusting” Mes/Chrono builds exist anymore since the alacrity nerf. Perplexity runes just allows you to sort of be competitive alongside the condi efficiency of the other classes.

WvW is a terrible part of the game now. Power creep and feature creep have absolutely devastated it and expunged all the fun. I simply can’t see how it can be rectified now.

Straegen.2938:

Simonoly.4352:

It basically just replaces Mesmer as a veilbot in WvW. It’s fun the first time, but just like everything else it eventually just adds to the list of atrocities that have ruined this game mode.

Zergs can see the veil coming and the stealth only lasts 2s. Cloaking Waters stealths a zerg for 2 minutes and opposing zergs have very few indicators that a giant swath of red is about to envelope them. It is also easily and frequently repeatable so a server can keep wiping zergs.

Maybe you had to be there but watching this thing in T1 was basically the nuclear option. When it is deployed, the enemy has very few counter options and none that I can think of that would be consistently effective.

Actually you’re right. I was being too nice. It’s awful.

The only reason I’m not as into general PPK as I was the ruins buff PPK, is that it’s now too easy to obliterate or be obliterated by people in WvW. It used to be that ganking someone required perfection of CC with a damage rotation – now it’s just brain dead easy to kill people with little to no effort usually from range or just porting to them and pressing a skill. The finesse is all gone since the specialisation patch and introduction of HoT.

It basically just replaces Mesmer as a veilbot in WvW. It’s fun the first time, but just like everything else it eventually just adds to the list of atrocities that have ruined this game mode.

I just can’t see condi chrono becoming too popular at high level because of Reapers and Scrappers. A competent Scrapper will mostly ignore your condi burst unless you can land a burst just before auto-elixir S procs. As for Reapers, there’s so much to worry about as a condi Mes, in particular – plague sending. Every 30 seconds you or one of your team mates is going to have to eat your condi burst. It’s not rare to see Plague Signet itself being used alongside the trait. Condi Mes quickly becomes a hinderance and basically has to avoid the Reaper the entire match.

However, as we know, condi Mes obliterates Heralds. So it does have some potential to shake things up.

Daredevil/Thief is woefully superfluous in sPvP until Shiro gets nerfed.

Guardians, Thieves and Warriors were present as a single aggregate class we like to call “Herald”.

Azukas.1426:

Honestly the best changes for mesmer right now is the proper nerfing of the classes in the finals.

If we can get revs down to 1 slot max per team along with proper power creep nerfs we’d prolly be in a VERY good spot. You’d have to keep an eye on the healing/condi builds but power might make a come back if anet did it right.

I’m in the same boat as you. A few small buffs to Mes/Chrono here and there to make underused skills/traits more appealing, but really, our overall effectiveness will be increased by bringing Herald and Scrapper into line.

In WvW, I just steal to people and dagger auto-attack them to death.

I walked out of a tower on EB last week and was instantly downed by a stack of DH traps. There wasn’t even any time for me to use a 1 second immediate distortion, I went instantly into downed state with the trap animations playing after. There were no enemies nearby and my combat log showed no damage sources. A guildy had a theory that the traps were laid by a couple of DHs that had left WvW hence the lack of damage numbers in my combat log. I’m not sure though.

Whatever it was, it is truly representative of the dire state of this game mode – being instantly downed by invisible damage from players who are no longer…there. It’s the semi-AFK high damage gameplay that rots WvW to its very core.

With the huge amount of high damage AoE recently introduced into the game this is certainly something that Anet should consider.

In WvW, I generally find I can at least survive and kite a Scrapper and possibly even spike them through their many defences if I play very well. It’s really tough though and requires you to make little to no mistakes.

It’s a completely different story against DH though as they can prevent you from kiting AND deny you a melee burst with little to no effort on the DHs part.

I recommend looking for Chronos and Warriors instead

Can’t get in game right now. But you should test it with other beam weapons like Druid staff AA, Ele Air Sceptre AA etc.

Silverkey.2078:

I have been suggesting for some time now something to fix that. Mistrust: “Reduce daze and stun duration to 0.25s, dazed and stunned foes are blinded, interrupted foes are inflicted 4 stacks confusion for 5s”. This way, the foe can still attack and move (to proc confusion and torment) but you still have a bit of defense from the blind. Plus, this synergies well with ineptitude for potentially some extra confusion. It’s the archetype of increased risk for increased rewards.

A-net did add the 4 stacks, but not the rest…

I do so wish that GW2 was as intricate a game for such a thing to exist. I would adore traits like this for every single class.

That main thing that currently ruins WvW is:

Dragonhunter, Druid and Revenant ranged pressure. It’s just so so much damage and CC from so far. Perpetuates the ranged meta and makes melee fighting almost completely superfluous. It’s just so boring.

Dojo.1867:

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Simonoly.4352:

I think this is a fair assessment. Although Druid staff auto-attack dps is already pretty high for a 1200 range non-projectile piercing attack that also heals allies. I actually think the auto-attack damage needs to be reduced and more damage shifted to Wisp and Vine Surge. Auto-attacking for the bulk of your damage is just boring.

Druid staff auto, good damage, lol. The damage for staff auto is pretty bad actually, since its main purpose of building up astral energy. If the damage seems to be good, it’s only becuase the numbers keep adding on due the weapon constaly channeling damage over time; the number may be large, but big numbers does not equal DPS, especially with how long those big numbers take to do with staff auto.

I am sorry but you are very uninformed. Many people tested and found staff dmg exceeds almost all other ranger weapons in terms of dps.

This. It’s basically a higher dps spatial surge with no range penalty. The problem is, there’s only 2 other damage skills available on Druid staff that are cumbersome to use at best. I say, reduce the need for auto-attack spam by redistributing staff damage and making Vine Surge not so ignorable.

All it needed to do was to not apply evade/invulnerable for the wells duration. It should have been an applied buff at the end of the well so that there was still the chance of a strong AoE party buff but with an easy to understand counter.

Maybe we can get that group unblockable attack buff back from the HoT BWE? I actually thought that was pretty cool.

I’ve not really tried it actively with daze but it works fine with the other CC effects. It actually also works with pull (quite funny for ping-pong snare action with an engi) and of course the knock-back of PBS even though it’s not stated in the tool tip. Need to test it on float and sink.

I think this is a fair assessment. Although Druid staff auto-attack dps is already pretty high for a 1200 range non-projectile piercing attack that also heals allies. I actually think the auto-attack damage needs to be reduced and more damage shifted to Wisp and Vine Surge. Auto-attacking for the bulk of your damage is just boring.

I am surprised the OP didn’t mention Thief dagger auto-attack. I really don’t think this damage increase was warranted at all. It has made backstab superfluous and I just don’t like it at all. Has cheapened the dagger thief experience for me. Thief/Daredevil needed help in other ways it did not receive.

I was wondering when I’d start to see some Ancient Seeds complaints. It’s a pretty hilarious trait at times – very oppressive. Every PBS I get to immobilise a target for 5 seconds. It even hits multiple CC’d targets during a Barrage. As much as I love my Ranger, I will admit that it’s too easy to use for such a potent snare effect. I imagine the ICD will be increased at some point possibly. Although there are more important balance concerns right now.

I’d say a condi Mes coming up against a meta Scrapper build is going to have a bad time. Condi Mes in general is one of the easiest condi builds to ignore because everything comes in a 2-3 condi burst package in a predictable fashion that a seasoned Scrapper will know exactly how to deal with. However, the meta Scrapper build is very popular for obvious reasons, so there’s lots of players using it and they will inevitably have their kittens handed to them until they improve with the build and really get to grips with it.

Straegen.2938:

Simonoly.4352:

Although I have to say that the auto-attack buff on Thief dagger is extraordinarily lazy on Anet’s part. It now has enormous dps to the point where I now find it more efficient to steal to someone and simply auto-attack them.

Completely agree with this as well. If they wanted the thief to have more sustainable damage throughout a fight, they should have bumped Initiative. The AA is now better than Heart Seeker or even Backstab since it consumes zero Initiative. Backstab is now bonus damage rather than being integral to play.

As far as I know, this was basically an attempt to make Daredevil more appealing for raids and as usual this has grave consequences for WvW. But Daredevil looks so boring in raids that I honestly don’t know why anyone would want to play it in that game mode

Yeah you’re kind of right about LB5 and Dragon’s Maw. Stun breaks should work through them. After all, if you get hit by Gravity Well you can stun break out, which is how it should be. Dragon’s Maw also applies slow and you get a lovely amount of might. I feel very sorry for people when I see them stuck in it.

Luckily, the core weaknesses of Daredevil and Reaper have somehow been maintained where they’ve been lost on other classes (except Warrior and Mesmer). Although I have to say that the auto-attack buff on Thief dagger is extraordinarily lazy on Anet’s part. It now has enormous dps to the point where I now find it more efficient to steal to someone and simply auto-attack them. If you do land a backstab on a glassy mid-low HP pool opponent, I often kill them simply with the first two part of the auto-attack chain anyway. But you do still die in seconds if you’re caught out of an evade frame on Daredevil so there’s still risk involved thankfully.

The current balance issues with DH in WvW are numerous. Spear of Justice is far too easy to land especially for a specialisation that has such massive AoE trap damage and you can pull people out of evade (bug?). It’s velocity is so high and it’s cast time so low that you can have it attached to someone and pull them before the chain has actually become visible for them (tested numerous times). Feels like the old Temporal Curtain but worse. Needs fixing.

Then there’s Shield of Courage which is one of the most oppressive skills in the game. I think it’s fine as a means of providing ranged sustain but it simply should not be blocking attacks at melee especially as it’s non-channeled. If someone manages to not explode to your traps when they enter melee range they shouldn’t then have to immediately leave because you have a frontal cone blocking all their burst. I suggest that it only blocks attacks at >200-300 range.

I also think Hunter’s Determination is simply too good, to the point that CC just works in your favour. If a Thief daze steals you it gets whacked by the trap for large damage, is dazed itself and gets crippled whilst you get aegis, stability, break stun and have more aegis to vacuum up as the Thief struggles to make an impact. The Thief is in a worse position and as a DH you’ve had to do exactly nothing for that to happen.

As for Hunter’s Ward, well, I really don’t think a ranged Ring of Warding is particularly healthy for the game at all, but the CD is long-ish so it’s kind of okay I guess. But I think the cripple feels unnecessary. Also it’s kind of invisible 70% of the time (tested lots) so you have people use one skill to get out of one ring only to put themselves next to or within another. With a 6 second duration this really shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

I’ve only mentioned DH as that is on topic, but I could easily tear through every single elite specialisation in a similar manner. Although it’s not as easy to single out Mesmer and Warrior issues apart from Double Gravity Wells and Gun Flame.

1) Introduce PvP amulets into WvW to attempt to address the rampant power creep that has just ruined the actual fighting part of this game mode. Or, even better, balance WvW separately from the other game modes.
2) Remove gimmicks that take away the fun from sieges. Get rid of banners, get rid of buffs that make siege weaponry take less damage (it’s just tedious).
3) Redesign the Desert borderland or just bring back the Alpine one. What’s currently there just isn’t working and is not meeting the needs of the WvW community.
4) Break down the walls between servers. I don’t think server identity is as important now as it is that players can actually reliably interact with one another. I’m not saying it should go full on Edge of the Mists, but certainly something similar is warranted now.
5) WvW needs to be tied into the mastery system. Auto-loot should be working in WvW.

I don’t really see the problem. All shortbow skills are amazing for different reasons. The only part of it that could do with a buff is Surprise Shot. I still think it should bounce like Trick Shot and immobilise both targets.

In WvW, I’ve been coupling Mistrust with perplexity runes to try and tune a Chrono condi build into something that is actually dangerous in larger fights. It’s ineffective 90% of the time due to rampant AoE cleansing, various passive condi removals/immunity and the various auto-CC immunity traits in existence. However, every now and again, you get a lot of AoE interrupts coupled with some nice condi shatters in a short space of time and it can get messy. Starting to get many angry whispers from players who simply have no idea what’s going on when they suddenly have 35-41 stacks of Confusion. Mantra of Distraction is of course essential to ensure AoE interrupts. The easiest and best use of this combination is hitting a downed target with 4-5 players attempting a res.

Bear in mind that this sort of build is massively gimmicky and I generally find there’s no room for inspiration or chaos so, even in full rabid, you are pretty glassy especially in WvW where direct damage is incredibly high and condi Necros too can just blow on you and you explode. The lack of personal boon uptime does protect you from corruption to some extent though.

It’s a bit of a laugh though if you feel like playing around with Mistrust.

I bet the next Elite Specialisation has Ricochet

I see where you’re coming from OP but I don’t really see many D/P Thieves using Bound when Dash is so incredibly powerful for snare prevention. Also, Bound leap finisher is actually making P/P and S/P ever so slightly more viable so it would be more damaging to build diversity to remove the leap finisher.

I actually think Mesmer/Chrono is pretty well balanced right now. There’s well defined weaknesses and strengths, plus there’s a unique buff that allows us to interact with groups outside of healing or dps. The only major buff that I think needs to occur is CD reductions as compensation for the alacrity nerf when it’s so blatantly obvious that the Chrono CDs were balanced around the old alacrity.

The problem is, the only other class that is also quite balanced right now is Warrior/Berserker. Necro/Reaper and Thief/Daredevil were relatively well balanced, until the last balance patch introduced an awful amount of power creep into these two classes as well. I think Anet will actually continue to buff Daredevil (in the wrong way) in the next ‘balance’ patch <sigh>

I get that the CoR thing is a bug, but really, it’s made WvW a far better place. Yes sitting in the middle of a zerg and whacking people at 1200 range for enormous damage numbers every 4 seconds is a very relaxing way to play, but it’s also just perpetuating the horrible pirate ship meta. Anet need to clamp down on this sort of thing if they have any interest in making this game mode enjoyable and, more importantly, reputable in wider gaming circles.

Oh Clone Death traits. You were a welcome different way of creating a punishment mechanic separate to interrupts that actually did very little damage (Debilitating Dissipation was RNG) but unfortunately, GW2 players were too lazy to utilise the many counters to this mechanic to their advantage and thus you were deleted. The point at which clone death traits could be evaded and blocked was the point at which you were entirely fine.

I quite liked having the option to interact with one of my class mechanics differently when I needed a break from my shatter build. But I’m weird like that.

Not experiencing a problem with this really. I think the delay is just catching people out and bringing them out of stealth – something that more players will get used to over time. A bit like when I still see other Thieves drop Choking gas and then hop into stealth and I just dip my toe in it and BOOM hello Mr. Thief! Dropping any sort of pulsing damage or a delayed spike such as Pulmonary Impact should be done with care if you are relying on stealth as a primary source. This goes for Mesmer too where a staggered shatter can reveal you and cause problems. It’s just something you have to play around.

I’m up for a return of the old borderland map now. The desert borderland has some fun ideas and beautiful vistas, but it lacks the pacing of the original Alpine Borderland.

Celestial Form has some pretty clear counters. I don’t think it’s much of any issue. It’s quite easy to neuter with some CC. The only things that I find are too powerful when I’m using my Druid is Ancestral Grace and Ancient Seeds. I think both of them need tweaking – possible further CD increases.

Classes that still need to be brought in line: Druid, Dragonhunter

Almost balanced, but still full of silly things that need to be looked at: Herald, Scrapper, Tempests, Berserker, Chrono.

Not too sure right now – dust needs to settle: Daredevil, Reaper

Daredevil and Reaper have possibly the most clear and well designed weaknesses in the game so even with some rather ridiculous buffs, they will still be easily countered by knowledgable players.

From someone who plays Druid, Daredevil, Chrono, spoons, guitar, bacon, narwhal.

Oh wow. They actually put that Precog Well change through. Oh dear.

That sceptre auto-attack change seems to have been lifted straight out of the many sceptre threads on here. I might actually turn on the auto-attack now if I’m feeling super lazy.

I’ve never understood the longer cooldown on Cry of Frustration. It is supposed to be the way in which we mostly interact with our shatters when using condition based builds. Yet the cooldown is double that of Mind Wrack which just feels dated.

It’s both a buff and a nerf. Troubles be coming against condi Necro and Engi, but DS will likely trivialise fights against non-hybrid 1-3 condi burst classes even more with the lowered threshold, which basically constitutes the other six classes. Either way, DS will continue to be a boring trait though. Feels like a missed opportunity for something exciting. Oh well.

Death Blossom should just be redesigned because it’s boring.

Dancing Dagger is fine.

CnD should have a wider hitbox and cleave three targets and apply an extra second of stealth per additional target.

For me, I find that the Phantasms are just using all the wrong skills.

I’ve always thought Phantasmal Warden should use Whirling Axe instead of Whirling Defense so it’s not so immediately ignorable when summoned. Phantasmal Swordsman should use Flashing Blade with a new blind source. And Phantasmal Mage should use Throw Torch.

I think Phantasmal Duellist should actually begin to become slightly more condi/hybrid based perhaps having the Duellist use Poison Dart Volley or Static Shot instead..

As someone who plays both Thief and Mesmer regularly now, the buffs to Thief are particularly good against Chrono. Fleet Shadows pretty much protects you from succumbing to an initial burst from the Chrono, as Chrono burst damage is very multi-part, so it’s guaranteed that the trait will proc in most scenarios – will anyone actually take Acrobatics though still? With the Black Powder after-cast reduction a Mesmer will have a tougher time reactively interrupting HS+BP combo and probably won’t be able to prevent Bounding Dodge combo at all now. Basilisk Venom is pretty much going to be a free interrupt + back stab + Impacting Disruption on a shield Mesmer (I shall enjoy playing around with this). Chrono already has a rough time against dagger cleave – going to be hell for them with that buff.

I don’t think it’s the end of the world and it will be nice to have my Daredevil empowered in all game modes. But yes, it will be quite a bit easier to kill Chrono now. I think we might see some s+d Thief return too with that dps increase to sword, which is still a difficult thing for dps Mes to deal with.

Actually, Warrior has just as many passive traits of both an offensive and defensive nature as other classes and they were the source of many complaints in the past. It’s just the relative strength of those traits right now which is disputed.

Awesome:

- I like the sword AA speed increase.
- Withdraw finally has that 10% increase.
- Black Powder streamlined a bit – after cast reductions are always nice.
- Upper Hand buff will do.

Concerned:

- Fleet Shadow – yuck, more passive death prevention traits.
- Basilisk venom – an unblockable one second stun that can be applied with any skill? I think a CD increase might accompany this at some point
- I don’t understand the need for a dagger AA increase. It already does great (balanced) damage.
- Hope that damage increase for staff is just the AA. I don’t think we need more reasons for Vault spam.

There are so many other things that need to be improved on Thief. I hope that this is but a drop in the ocean compared to the actual balance changes later in January

I’m really disappointed that Thief received an auto death prevention trait. These sort of traits already make gameplay very boring because there’s this great big safety net for anyone using them. I expect Mesmer will receive a “get distortion when hit under 25% health” in the future <sigh>.

Also, dagger auto-attack and Basilisk Venom are absolutely fine (shockingly balanced – rare these days). Seem like the wrong target for buffs. Pistol auto-upgrade, Thieves Guild and Dagger Storm are far more in need of some buffs.

- Alacrity nerf is fair enough.
- Precog well change is utterly weird and very boring.
- Malicious Sorcery is still not GM worthy.
- Chaos Armour change is unfair. Unlike other auras, each condition/boon only has a one in three chance of applying – therefore the blind was completely and utterly justified as it may never even proc. Simply don’t get this one.

I’m guessing there are more buffs coming to Mesmer that haven’t been mentioned? That sceptre rework? How about making those other off-hands viable? What about Phantasmal Mage? How about a buff to condi Mes so it can exist outside the confines of the Illusions specialisation? What will Chrono get to cope with those buffs to Thief that directly counter shatter Chrono?

I generally find kiting/harassing with shortbow works well when they’re in shroud. Use the skull fear only when they come out of shroud. They can do very little whilst being feared outside of shroud, so use this moment to cleave away. If they have Unholy Sanctuary, don’t get greedy with your cleave, back off and ensure you interrupt the heal after the last bit of shroud wears off.

A 33% damage increase on dagger auto-attacks would be outrageous and totally unneeded. But…stranger things have happened to this game.